The 'terrorist' other in British and French identity construction: Relating new elements of security disclosure arsenals to rhetorical tools of the past

In an age where terrorist based national security rhetoric has received heightened attention in official discourses, this study investigates how legislative and linguistic trends in Britain and France are affecting their respective processes of contemporary identity construction. In these two states there has been an impressive passing of counter-terrorism legislation this century, greatly increasing legitimate state power and authority. It is the legitimation struggle surrounding such changes in power and how such controversial shifts have used language power to achieve largely material results that drives this project's investigation. Despite some evidence that state power is decreasing in the realm of national security, it seems to actually be increasing. Through a discourse analysis of official texts from 2000 to the present in Britain and France, this project hopes to achieve a more comprehensive, analytic mapping of how material and ideational powers connect and affect patterns of identity construction at the state level.