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Securitization, Normalization, and Representations of Islam in Senate Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2017

Alise Coen
Alise Coen*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Alise Coen, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan, One University Drive, Sheboygan, WI 53081. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

This study explores depictions of Islam in Senate rhetoric across the 106th (1999–2000) and 111th (2009–2010) Congresses. These two periods are compared to consider overall patterns in congressional discourse on Islam and to explore how the September 11th, 2001 attacks might have shaped this discourse. The study also examines the possible effects of ideology, partisanship, and senator religious affiliation on representations of Islam. The article ultimately suggests that despite some important post-September 11 shifts in Senate rhetoric pertaining to Islam, persistent themes regarding securitization, Orientalist tendencies, moderate-fundamentalist dichotomizations, and ideological divisions merit scrutiny. This study contributes to work on Congress, religion, and American politics by assessing trends in the discursive representation of Islam by United States legislators. Theoretically, the article draws upon the Copenhagen School in International Relations to assess the securitization of Islam within legislative debates and to develop the related concept of normalization.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 111 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2017 

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Footnotes

A previous version of this article was presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. The author would like to thank James Guth for providing instructive comments on this research. The author also wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers for their productive feedback. The author is grateful to John McTague and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz for sharing their original dataset on senator religious affiliations. Any errors are the sole responsibility of the author.

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