Ralph, J orcid.org/0000-0002-8402-678X, Holland, J orcid.org/0000-0003-4883-332X and Zhekova, K (2017) Before the vote: UK foreign policy discourse on Syria 2011-2013. Review of International Studies, 43 (5). pp. 875-897. ISSN 0260-2105
Abstract
The literature of recent UK policy toward Syria focuses on the 2013 chemical weapons crisis. We examine policy discourses leading up to that. The government supported the removal of Assad but faced the challenge of explaining how that would be realized. Given its unwillingness and inability to mobilise support for military intervention, or to tailor policy goals to match available means, government strategy arguably lacked credibility. Our purpose is to examine how the government tried to close this ends means gap and how, having failed to do that, its ‘discursive strategy’ legitimised its approach. We argue the resources for the government’s discursive strategy on Syria can be found in the earlier articulation of ‘liberal conservatism’. A policy that from an ideal-liberal or ideal-conservative position might have been criticised as half-baked was maintained by a strategy that gave consideration to, but did not completely follow through on, either archetype. Drawing on an analysis of 2152 sources and supplemented by elite interviews, we illustrate how this strategy managed the interplay of two basic discourses: a liberal insistence that the UK should support ‘the Arab Spring’ and a conservative insistence that military intervention was imprudent because ‘Syria was not Libya’.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017, British International Studies Association. This article has been published in a revised form in Review of International Studies [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210517000134]. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | UK Foreign Policy; Syria; Discursive Strategy; Intervention |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Politics & International Studies (POLIS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Feb 2017 16:17 |
Last Modified: | 09 Apr 2019 13:34 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/S0260210517000134 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:112062 |