Language, Policy and the Construction of a Torture Culture in the War on Terrorism

Richard Dean Wells Jackson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

82 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Torture has been widely practiced by US forces as an officially-sanctioned information gathering strategy in the war on terrorism. At the same time, public attitudes have exhibited a growing tolerance towards the torture of terrorist suspects. This article examines the role of elite political discourse in constructing and sustaining the conditions necessary for the acceptance and normalisation of torture. It argues that a focus on elite discourse is crucial for understanding how torture comes to be practised because discourses set the logic and parameters of policy formulation and create the wider social legitimacy that is required to enact policy, thereby facilitating the construction of a broader torture-sustaining reality. The study’s findings highlight the role of ideational factors in policy analysis and have important normative implications.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)353-371
Number of pages19
JournalReview of International Studies
Volume33
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2007

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