Description
This paper uses securitization theory to examine the isolationism discourse used to describe and analyze Donald Trump policies. Theorizing isolationism as a performative security discourse, with reference to historical US isolationism discourses from the 1960s, this paper interrogates the functions of contemporary isolationism discourse.
The paper does not hold that isolationism is/was a coherent foreign policy strategy or history. However, this discourse does (re)perform identity and history, and disciplines foreign policy approaches and knowledges.
Though isolationism discourse often uses the vocabulary of foreign policy and is usually anchored to events related to international relations, it is primarily a domestic discourse. This discourse, like most foreign policy discourse, is grounded in allegedly objective understandings of international relations and history, but functions in concert with political and electoral strategies.
Specifically, the paper references the discourse of George Wallace’s presidential and gubernatorial campaigns in the late 1960s, as well as the isolationism discourse used to describe him and his potential voters. This case study is used to understand Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements as electoral politicking with very little actual foreign policy discourse (or indeed foreign policy). As such, accusations of isolationism, while attempting to critique foreign policy, are instead dealing with electoral politics and (re)productions of identity/history.
