CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Elsasser, Maike |
|---|---|
| Title | On Human Rights Violations and their Legitimation through Dehumanization: A Case Study on the George W. Bush Administration |
| Summary | While waging ‘war on terror’, the George W. Bush Administration severely infringed the rights of suspected terrorists on the one hand, and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, allegedly to safeguard human rights and lives on the other. This conflict of simultaneously abusing rights while acting as “savior” abroad is neither outdated nor uniquely American, but in fact is a major problem among many Western governments involved in international human rights protection. It is therefore imperative to understand what is part of the environment that these apparent saviors build to legitimize their own rights violations. Thus, scaffolded around the post-9/11 counter-terror measures, I argue that dehumanization of suspected terrorists as well as humanization of victims of terror were a crucial part of the environment that the Bush Administration built to morally legitimize human rights violations in the U.S. This reveals a conundrum wherein the victims of human rights violations are portrayed as less human in order to legitimize the violation of their human rights. I argue, therefore, that the Bush Administration has role-modeled an understanding of universal human rights wherein rights are not granted peremptorily based on a de facto humanness, but based on the perceived degree of their humanness, thus risking to undermine the entire concept of universal human rights. |
| Supervisor | Cesario Alvim, Juliana |
| Department | Undergraduate Studies BA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/elsasser_maike.pdf |
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