Ambiguous specificity: The production of foreign policy bullshit in electoral contexts
| Author | Gustav Meibauer |
| Published date | 01 February 2021 |
| Date | 01 February 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0263395720936039 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395720936039
Politics
2021, Vol. 41(1) 15 –30
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395720936039
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Ambiguous specificity: The
production of foreign policy
bullshit in electoral contexts
Gustav Meibauer
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Abstract
This article conceptualises the production of foreign policy bullshit in electoral contexts as a
result of contending incentives towards ambiguity and specificity. Candidates must speak to widely
divergent, even contradictory, policy ideas to maximise voter share in primaries and elections. At
the same time, overly broad rhetoric or evasion risks signalling incompetence and unsuitability for
office. Candidates are thus incentivized to hide the compromise character of their suggestions
behind hyper-specific rhetoric. Following literature from philosophy and linguistics, this is a form
of deception best captured by ‘bullshit’, that is, when the candidate simply does not care too much
whether what they are saying matches with objective reality but does care that this inattention to
truth is not known to the audience. This dynamic is illustrated in a case study on the 2015/2016
elections. Specifically, bipartisan support for a US-enforced no-fly zone in Syria cannot be explained
by the tool’s likely utility and effectiveness. Instead, the tool’s value for many candidates lay in its
effective communication of contradictory policy ideas. The tool allowed presidential hopefuls to
appear resolute yet responsible, purposive yet pragmatic, idealist, and realist, while also signalling
specificity and thus foreign policy expertise.
Keywords
bullshit, elections, foreign policy, rhetoric, Syria
Received: 19th September 2019; Revised version received: 16th January 2020; Accepted: 27th January 2020
Introduction
This article argues that (at times bipartisan) support for unsuitable foreign policy instru-
ments is best explained through looking at how candidate rhetoric must strike a balance
between ambiguity and specificity in US electoral contexts. Ambiguity stems from the
need to compromise between widely divergent audiences and policy ideas, while speci-
ficity signals expertise and suitability for office. This articles thus explores the interlink-
age between electoral politics, rhetoric, and foreign policy. Like other articles in this
special issue, it illuminates the incentives and constraints presidential candidates grapple
Corresponding author:
Gustav Meibauer, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE,
UK.
Email: g.m.meibauer@lse.ac.uk
936039POL0010.1177/0263395720936039PoliticsMeibauer
research-article2020
Special Issue Article
16 Politics 41(1)
with when speaking about foreign policy (Boys, 2021; Lacatus and Meibauer, 2021;
Payne, 2021).
To this end, following Frankfurt (2005), I develop the concept of ‘bullshit’ in contrast
to erroneous judgement and lying. I illustrate the electoral dynamics at work in its pro-
duction in a case study on no-fly zone proposals for Syria in the 2015/2016 US presiden-
tial elections. For the candidates, the no-fly zone was valuable because it exhibits
military-strategic characteristics that render it sufficiently ambiguous to effectively signal
diverse, indeed contradictory policy ideas. It enabled them to appear resolute yet respon-
sible, purposive yet pragmatic, idealist and realist simultaneously. And yet, suggesting it
as a seemingly specific policy, perhaps counter-intuitively, made the detection of its stra-
tegic uselessness in Syria less likely.
A no-fly zone denotes a space within a state’s sovereign territory in which another
state (or coalition) patrols to deny the use of that (air) space and ensure implementation
of whatever rules the intervener set to hold therein. It can fulfil multiple strategic func-
tions, including air support, punishment, and aerial occupation (Benard, 2004: 455).
However, numerous authors suggest that the no-fly zone is neither strategically optimal
nor even appropriate for intervention and conflict management, and that it is unsuitable
for the protection of civilians. Its uses in Iraq and Bosnia supported this claim empirically
(Brattebo, 2006; Frelick, 1992; Jakobsen, 1998; Roberts, 1993). In the 2011 Libya inter-
vention, the no-fly zone proved ineffective as soon as it established a shaky status quo,
and was replaced by a more aggressive air campaign (Lindström and Zetterlund, 2012).
Authors evaluating the tool’s effectiveness (Angle, 1999; Benard, 2004; Francis, 1999;
Gibbons, 2002; Knights, 2011; Kramlinger, 2001; Renner, 2011) stress that no-fly zones
are ‘insufficient to accomplish the desired ends’ in conflict management because of the
‘risk of civilian casualties, environmental factors, and the inherent limitations of air-
power’ (Renner, 2011: 2).
When a no-fly zone was suggested for Syria, the US refrained from imposing it largely
because of geostrategic reasons (Carter and Dunford, 2016; Department of Defense/Press
Operations, 2015; Gutterman, 2013; Johnson and Mueen, 2012: 4; Zenko, 2016a, 2016b).
Analysts and decision-makers agreed early on that ‘a no-fly zone [was] unlikely to allevi-
ate the suffering of ordinary Syrians and may potentially be harmful’ (Beehner, 2016)
because it ‘cannot effectively counter ground-based lethality’ (Phillips, 2016: 182; also:
Carter and Dunford, 2015; Dempsey, 2013; Lynch, 2012; Nuland, 2011). And yet, the no-
fly zone continued to play a role in foreign policy debates and had bipartisan support
during the 2015/2016 election. Why do candidates, knowing that no-fly zones may be
ineffective or downright counter-productive, suggest the tool for conflict management
and intervention? And what does this tell us about how foreign policy proposals are used
rhetorically in elections?
I argue below that inappropriate policies may persist in electoral contexts if they allow
the communication of usually incommensurable ideas, all the while they cloak this com-
promise character and factual emptiness behind a veil of specificity. The policy’s elec-
toral value becomes detached from its military-strategic or other utility in solving the
problem at hand; its use can then be conceptualised as a form of ‘bullshit’ used primarily
for electoral posturing on foreign policy issues. In the 2015/2016 elections, the no-fly
zone was ambiguous in that it could signal leadership as well as restraint, moral respon-
sibility as well as the prudence not to risk American lives, the belief in the US military’s
primacy as well as fear of ‘slippery slopes’ and ‘mission creep’. And yet, it sounded spe-
cific enough to signal expertise and leadership.
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