Exorcistes américains : la Heritage Foundation, la guerre culturelle et la sauvegarde du mariage et des valeurs familiales traditionnelles

Abstract

Abstract: During the Republican Party's national convention in 1992, Pat Buchanan claimed that a “culture war” was raging in the United States. While Buchanan described this “war” as a “struggle for the soul of America,” we use the culture-war concept to refer to the efforts of various conservative political and social actors trying to protect US traditional values and to “exorcise” the liberal and secular “demons” of the United States. Accordingly, this paper focuses on one of these actors: the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank located in Washington, DC. Performing a postructuralist discursive analysis of various “texts” produced by three scholars from the Heritage about marriage, family values, and sexuality, the paper shows how these scholars strategically rely on certain words and expressions in their research in order to reach two political goals: (1) marginalize liberal views on the issues just mentioned; and (2) discipline Americans by leading them to embrace a traditional/conservative interpretation of US national identity.