”All necessary measures” - En diskursanalys av NATO:s intervention i Libyen 2011

Abstract

The world is changing, and with it the security doctrines and the world order. This bachelor thesis is focusing on the expressions of world order as described by Björn Hettne through a case study of NATO’s intervention i Libya 2011 and it’s use of Responsibility to Protect. The paper uses the discourse theory developed by Laclau’s and Mouffe to map and analyse NATO’s discourse through the press releases made by NATO during and just before the intervention. This in turn is then used as examples of NATO’s discourse on the following: security in terms of human security versus state security; group identity and who is it that NATO is supposed to protect; and who is made human, in the lines of Maja Zehfuss’s research on the idea of humanity. Among the key findings are the way which the Libyan dictator Muhammar al-Gaddafi is by NATO both defined as a human and a representative of an inhumane regime, and that NATO’s intervention in Libya may be seen as a failed attempt to establish a new world order, with a few suggestions for further research.