9/11 and the Past and Future of American Foreign Policy

Does the national security strategy of the Bush administration constitute a radical new departure or does it possess clear links to past American policies? Is the Bush strategy motivated by the perception of threat, the pursuit of power, or the quest for hegemony? This article argues that the policies of the Bush administration are more textured and more conflicted than either its friends or its foes believe. They are also less bold and less likely to offer enduring solutions. In fact, they constitute a surprising departure from the ways most former US administrations have dealt with ‘existential’ threats in the twentieth century. By championing a ‘balance of power favouring freedom’ and by eschewing the ‘community of power’ approach propounded by Woodrow Wilson, Bush and his advisers are charting a unilateralist course for times of crisis, a course neither so popular nor so efficacious as its proponents think. But the unilateralism is prompted by fears and threats that must not be dismissed or trivialized by critics of the administration.     

The 9/11 Events: A Precursor to the Arab Spring

Despite the fact that the Arab revolutions that swept important Arab countries by the beginning of 2011 from North Africa to the Middle East were the result of precarious economic and social conditions, still the causes and roots of these uprisings at that very moment indicate some inherent potential drives that are the result of years of simmering. The United States had long supported the expansion of democracy in the world, but the Arab world had always been seen as an exception. The September 11 events destroyed that approach to the Middle East. Accordingly, all attempts to explain the uprisings have been overwhelmed and distorted by the concurrent conditions of the Arab world in relation to its social, political, and cultural deficit. However, the underpinnings of the Arab revolutions can be traced to a distrust of people in their governments and a deep understanding of the new world order triggered by the 9/11 events and the invasion of Iraq. This article traces the impact of the 9/11 events on the Arab mindset ever since the Iraq war and how it resulted in the turmoil of the Arab revolutions.     

The Norwegian 9/11: In the Church Without a Bible

The article identifies roles and conditions for the Bible within modern politics in the West. By comparing the official Norwegian response to the terror attack in Oslo July 22, 2011, with the similar response in the US on September 11, 2001, it is explained why the Bible is nearly absent in the official discourse of Norwegian Prime Ministers. While religion resurfaced in the process of national recuperation with the Cathedral of Oslo as a center for mass ritualization and national grief, the biblical legacy played no part in the Prime Minister's speech. The primary political leader of the Norwegian state has rarely bolstered his argument with the Bible, although this state has officially adhered to a Protestant confession from its Constitution in 1814. The Liberal Bible that appears to be operative in US presidential discourse is not playing a major role on a comparable political level in Norway.     

Terrorism,Terror, and 9/11: a Review Essay

Fatal Future? Transnational Terrorism and the New Global Disorder. Richard M. Pearlstein. Al‐Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. Jason Burke. Why? The Deeper History Behind the September 11th Terrorist Attack on America. 2nd ed. Expanded and Updated. J. W. Smith. The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. David Ray Griffin “foreword by Richard Falk”.     

Presidential Policymaking in Crisis Situations: 9/11 and Its Aftermath

This paper compares the decision-making approaches of two presidents, John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush, in relation to unanticipated international crises. One, President Kennedy, employed a broad body of expert opinion and entertained a wide range of options in meeting the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963. The actions taken avoided a potential worldwide nuclear war. The other, George W. Bush, consulted only a few, like-minded colleagues and appears to have decided early on that a war directed against Iraq and Saddam Hussein was a necessity. The administration's justifications for the war were difficult to prove and the administration chose an essentially bilateral (as against a multi-lateral) approach. The Iraq War was won fairly easily, although its long-range consequences remain unclear. The two styles of decision-making present polarized approaches to international crisis situation management.     

Images of Muslims in Western Scholarship and Media after 9/11

This article endeavors to trace changes in the images of the Muslim of the Orient, a product of Orientalism, to contemporary images of the Muslim post 9/11, marking a transition from classical Orientalism to a new Orientalism or Islamism. The study demonstrates how most Western scholarship and media, through the construction of so‐called Islamophobia, have portrayed Muslims in terms of global terrorism, Islamic jihadism, fanatic Islamism, fundamentalism, fascism, and Islamic authoritarianism. Much of the scholarship and media dealing with Islam and Muslims require critical assessment and revision. The article also addresses ways through which Muslims in academia and the media have opposed negative images of Muslims. For instance, in response to the irrational acts of extremists that have fostered negative stereotypes of Islam, public lectures, sermons, conferences, and media programs have recently and abundantly been made by Muslim scholars and media activists to present Muslims positively at both the national and global levels.     

Between Tragedy and Farce: 9/11 Compensation and the Value of Life and Death

This paper examines how lives have been valued (or not) in the US federal compensation programs set up in the wake of 9/11. The Victim Compensation Fund (VCF), implemented within days of the attacks, provided unlimited funds to the victims. In contrast, many first responders who developed illnesses later have had access to limited support. Only in 2011 was the Zadroga Act signed into place, which extends compensation to these workers and others. This paper compares and contrasts the two programs to make two points. One, the debates around compensation lay bare the differential values that are ascribed to life, and how biopower not only fosters life but abandons some to the point of death. Two, despite the controversies around extending compensation, the Zadroga Act was eventually enacted. Our second point is thus that war is not just destructive, but can be used to reconstitute the social and political in unanticipated ways.     

Lobbying after 9/11: Policy Regime Emergence and Interest Group Mobilization

Does the emergence of a new boundary‐spanning policy regime shift the focus of well‐established organized interests, or does it mobilize new ones? In this article, I show that interest groups with a presence in Washington before 9/11 rapidly—but temporarily—shift their attention to the homeland security issues. Established groups' entrenchment in antecedent subsystems appears to buffer against widespread policy disruption and interest upheaval. However, a new set of previously latent groups opportunistically mobilizes after the regime is institutionalized. Newly mobilized groups replace those that retreat back to the regime's antecedent subsystems. Though the policy regime fails to resolve the jurisdictional turf conflicts that triggered its creation, the institutionalization of homeland security generates its own original, distinct government demand for lobbying. Interests that previously had no business in Washington before 9/11 took advantage of the new opportunities the regime offered without supplanting interests established long before the Department of Homeland Security and its congressional committees existed.     

9/11 and Middle Eastern Studies past and future: revisiting Ivory towers on sand

The events of 9/11 intensified attacks on the field of Middle Eastern Studies, especially in the US—attacks whose reverberations have been felt ever since in academia and beyond. A key moment was the publication in 2001 of a book by Martin Kramer, Ivory towers on sand , which accused the field of irrelevance, failure to predict, lack of patriotism and wilful blindness to the failings in the Arab and Islamic world. In a Foreword to this review article, Gerd Nonneman points out that the importance of the heated debate this occasioned, both on intellectual and political grounds, has if anything been heightened in today's policy environment. At the request of International Affairs , Fred Halliday therefore revisits the book's arguments. He accepts the desirability for scholars to engage in public assessment and critique of others' work and to relate this to broader concerns of both epistemology and public policy. He also acknowledges shortcomings in the literature on Islamism and civil society, and in Edward Said's Orientalism . But he concludes that Kramer's book fails to resolve the questions broached, adds nothing that is original to debates on social science method and theory, distorts the state of contemporary Middle Eastern Studies (in part by ignoring most of the important work done outside the US) and that the book has had damaging consequences for university life itself. In part, the article suggests, this is a reflection of a lack—shared by significant areas of recent social science writing, including Said's Orientalism —of an adequate grounding in issues of social science methodology and philosophy. It also reflects an untenable assumption about the nature of the relationship between academic work and public policy issues.     

The Muslim Male Character Typology in American Cinema Post‐9/11

This article tries to discover whether filmic stereotypes of Muslims in general and Arabs in particular have undergone any changes since 9/11, and if they have, what new character types have been developed to reflect these images. In the course of this study, results from other researchers who have examined the presentation of Muslims on the screen both before and after 9/11 are referred to, with a view of highlighting the sustained, unchanging character features, as well as detecting new formations. A variety of films, which have been released since 2011, incorporating Muslim and Arab characters, are used in this research and the physical appearance attributes and behavioral attributes as described by Mastro and Greenberg have been utilized to help with the analysis. The most important finding is that in the 10‐year period following 9/11, although some familiar characterizations still hit the screen occasionally, there has been a tendency to reconstruct more convincing Muslim and Arab cinematic characters. Also noticeable is the fact that the narrative at times focuses on their ethnicity or economic status more than their religious beliefs. Continued research will show if this is a passing phase or the beginning of an end to Muslim and Arab stereotyping in American cinema.