The Legitimacy of War under the Perspective of the Speech-act Theory The Cases of the First and Second Gulf Wars (1991/2003) in a Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The article aims at analyzing some processes of securitization during the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003, in a comparative perspective, seeking to reveal how the influence of some of the most important political actors of the United States' decision-making structure is materialized, through their speeches, in an attempt to present some of the identified threats as socially constructed cognitive elements. To accomplish the task this research applied the conceptual framework provided by the Theory of Speech-Acts (TSA) and by the Theory of Securitization as well considering the current understanding of the so-called jus ad bellum (or right to wage war).