The external dimension of European Union counter-terrorism discourse: Good governance, the ‘Arab Spring’ and the ‘Foreign Fighters’

Abstract:

The central objective of this article is to contribute to studies on EU counter-terrorism discourse by bringing the "external dimension" in. To that end, it borrows concepts of the discourse-historical approach and provides an in-depth linguistic examination of the international aspect of the EU’s counter-terrorism discourse. The article identifies good governance and the Arab Spring as two central themes of this discourse and illustrates the linguistic means in which the two topics are made "natural" and "normal" by reference to counter-terrorism. The analysis also discusses the political and normative effects of EU discursive construction of counter-terrorism.