![]() ![]() This is despite clear incentives for challenged (authoritarian) regimes to adapt the war on terror discourse. Factors like terrorism intensity, armed conflict and authoritarian regime have little predictive power. There are hence clear limits to the USA's soft power and the hyper-globalisation of terrorism discourses. The study finds that the discourse has by no means globalised but is mostly limited to wealthy countries in Europe and North America. Based on this dataset, I present the first comprehensive analysis of the global diffusion of the war on terror discourse. This article introduces a novel dataset containing information on the war on terror discourse in the school textbooks of 36 countries, representing around 64% of the world's population, for the period 2003-2014. However, existing work mostly focusses on one or a few cases, predominantly in the global north. ![]() ![]() Consequentially, a large number of studies analyse the assumptions underlying and the policies legitimised by the war on terror discourse. ![]() This discourse had tremendous impacts on both domestic and international politics. The war on terror as a discourse assumes that terrorism is an essential threat of global proportions, is mostly perpetuated by Islamist networks, and requires a strong international response. However, there is still recognisable functionalist convergence as the states under analysis utilise their control of the education system in their internal struggles, mainly by portraying their opponents as evil, by ascribing a positive identity to themselves, and by calling for support by their citizens (including restrictions of human rights and democracy). Contrary to recent claims, considerable heterogeneity persists regarding geopolitical imaginations of terrorism, while US-coined discourses are only infrequently adapted. Simultaneously, while most work on the topic focuses on individual cases (typically of Western countries), I conduct the first comparative analysis of twelve countries from different world regions: China, Egypt, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka and Turkey. This study combines both themes by asking: How do school textbooks, sanctioned by states that are violently challenged by internal opposition, discuss the issue of terrorism? I draw on, and contribute to, four distinct, yet related streams of research: critical geopolitics, critical terrorism studies, geographies of education, and young people's geographies. The role of education in political socialisation and the importance of terrorism discourses in promoting (or silencing) certain interests have long been acknowledged. ![]()
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