Creating the threat and ignoring the response: A critical comparison of discursive motivation within resolutions concerning Libya and Syria

Sammanfattning: In the spring of 2011, the populations in Libya and Syria rose against their governments, taking part in what would become known as the Arab Spring. The similarities of the two countries’ situations were striking, however the international response to the burgeoning crises diverged greatly. This study has tried to explain how – rather than why – interventions are motivated from discourse by looking at discourses within resolutions concerning Libya and Syria in the crisis’ early years. To answer this question a comparative critical discourse analysis combined with securitization and de-securitization moves, as developed by the Copenhagen School, have been applied to four central resolutions concerning the two cases. The comparative analysis concluded that in both implicit and explicit terms the Libyan and Syrian discourses were constructed differently. This study further argued that a securitization of the Libyan conflict helped explain the intervention and similarly, a de-securitization of Syrian conflict helped explain the non-intervention. Overall this study tried to shed light on the paradoxical discursive treatment the two conflicts have endured while adding to the understanding on how linguistic structures and discourses motivate practice within the international environment.