AbstractsPolitical Science

This project problematizes how the British political elite in the UK uses speech acts in securitizing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Thereby the aim is to illuminate how ISIL is portrayed as being evil by nature, meanwhile the UK seems to be the civilized and reasonable actor and thereby legitimize its actions in the fight against ISIL. This has been done by examining two speeches by means of discourse analysis in order to identify the prevailing discourse. Furthermore, by using discourse analysis as a method, one will illuminate the security issues in the British society stemming from ISIL. This will be done in accordance to the Copenhagen School theory, since it goes beyond the traditional view on security. The findings shows that one must consider other reasons for the emergence of ISIL and take former actions into account as well. In other words, if defining ISIL as a self-constructed evil actor, one will not come to the root cause of the radicalization and find a strategy for ending radicalization in ISIL and similar groups.