Doppelte Hegemonie

The book offers a performative analysis of hegemony within the discourse on international terrorism after the death of Osama bin Laden. It takes up the poststructuralist perspective of the Essex School of discourse analysis, expanding it by pragmatic approaches to discourse. The leading questions are: How is the death of bin Laden constituted as a discursive event? And: Which hegemonializing effects are produced in the dis-course following his death? The notion of a “double hegemony” points to the interactive dynamics between the reproduction of hegemony within the United States on the one hand and on a global level on the other. The study points out the heterogeneous and decentralized processes which are at the bottom of the United States’ political hegemony . However, these same processes render its hegemony permanently susceptible to subversion and rupture.