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dc.rights.licenseCC-BY-NC-ND
dc.contributor.advisorde Graaff, Prof. Dr. B.G.J.
dc.contributor.authorIreton, D.G.
dc.date.accessioned2019-08-07T17:00:49Z
dc.date.available2019-08-07T17:00:49Z
dc.date.issued2019
dc.identifier.urihttps://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/33245
dc.description.abstractThis thesis looks at Hezbollah’s alleged activities in Latin America, in particular, their connection with drug traffickers and involvement in money laundering. It is my contention that during the Obama administration the US government securitised this issue constructing it as a threat to the nation which allowed it to ramp up sanctions against the group without having to provide proper evidence of the danger it poses. My aim is to discover how these securitising actors were able to construct this threat. In order to do so I examined congressional records from this period using critical discourse analysis, specifically Roxanne Lynn Doty’s discursive practises approach. In line with my hypothesis, I discovered that the securitising actors relied on the linguistic conventions found in both the war on drugs and the war on terror rhetoric. Additionally, the securitising actors conceptualised Latin America as the US’ ‘backyard’. Together this enabled the securitising actors to amplify the severity of the threat to the extent that some kind of securitising action became imperative, in this case, the enacting of the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act of 2015. Finally, by using analysis by contrasting narratives throughout I identified a rift between Obama and the securitising actors. This is explored in more detail looking at the Iran nuclear deal and the suspended Drug Enforcement Administration operation Project Cassandra and the possible ramifications of this in regard to realist and constructivist International Relations theory, two theories supposed by many to be irreconcilable but which I propose might work together after all.
dc.description.sponsorshipUtrecht University
dc.format.extent891910
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen
dc.title‘The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps’: The US Securitisation of Hezbollah in Latin America under the Obama Administration
dc.type.contentMaster Thesis
dc.rights.accessrightsOpen Access
dc.subject.courseuuInternational Relations in Historical Perspective


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