CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2007
| Author | Maskaliunaite, Asta |
|---|---|
| Title | A LONG-TERM TERRORIST CAMPAIGN AND POLITICAL DISCOURSE: THE ROLE OF ETA IN SPANISH POLITICS |
| Summary | Abstract The attacks of September 11, 2001 on the United States gave a renewed impetus for the development of the studies of terrorism. These new studies, however, tend to focus exclusively on the Al Qaeda-type Islamic terrorism and forget that there are numerous historical cases of terrorism that are enlightening when we try to understand the phenomenon. In addition, the studies both before and after the September 11 attacks tend to leave aside one important element of terrorism, i.e. its political nature, or, more precisely, the impact it has on the politics of the country (or region, or the entire world). The objective of this thesis is to assess how the presence of a terrorist group influences the the political life of the country and the discourse of the country’s main political actors. For the purposes of this thesis, the case of Spain in its fight against the Basque separatist group ETA is taken as a situation to examine. The analysis is based on two assumptions which guide the outlook of the work: first, that we cannot assess the impact of terrorism on the political system without analyzing the discourse of the political actors and, second, that the discourse on terrorism is not created in a vacuum, but builds on the discursive elements that are present in the historical discourse of the country (culture, civilization), and, through the combination of these elements, allows us to understand the terrorist violence and provide it with meaning. The investigation goes through three stages: the first chapter presents the main theoretical concepts and frameworks that are further used in the investigation of the role of the ETA violence in the country; then, the historical discourse on the nation and violence is studied in both Spain and the Basque Country; finally, the last two chapters examine in detail two crucial moments in reshaping of the discourse on violence, namely, signing of the Declaration of Lizarra and the electoral campaign of 2004. Here a particular emphasis is given on the influence that the events of March 11 had on the discourse. Based on the findings of the investigation the following conclusions have been drawn: (1) democratic political actors take the elements available in the historical discourse for their respective discourse constructions; (2) democratic actors connect these different elements in the discourse according to their own needs. There are different types of logic (the logic of equivalence or the logic of difference) that can be employed in an attempt to hegemonize discourse and it is up to the democratic political actors which of them will be given priority to. However, the presence of violence often brings forth the “war frames”, i.e. the logic of equivalence, where everyone who is not with us is against us. Finally, the constructed equivalential chains are not based on neutral political divisions, but represent the moral dimension and the moral choices between good and evil. |
| Supervisor | Harrington, Carol |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2007/pphmaa01.pdf |
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