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either of the American newspapers surveyed. There are two possible explanations for this
phenomenon. First, it is possible that religious arguments simply do not play an important role in
the way American editorialists discuss war. But before we assume that such arguments are not
part of the broader discussion about the war, it would perhaps be useful to consider a second
possibility: that editors are aware of this type of argument, but that in American papers this
perspective is treated differently. In the excluded data – including op-ed pieces and letters to the
editor – religious arguments did appear, although still at infinitesimally small rates compared to
in the Pakistani, Egyptian and Saudi newspapers. Perhaps American editorialists shy away from
making such arguments themselves, but intentionally include other opinion pieces containing
such arguments as a counterbalance? More research would be needed to understand their
motivation. Another potential direction for further research would be to look at regional and
local newspapers, to see if religious arguments are also rare in that case.
Another important point is raised by the use of Islamic arguments in these data sets. In
particular, the three predominantly Muslim states included in this project all revealed Islamic
arguments being used differently in newspaper editorials, and being paired with many secular
arguments. This not only reinforces the idea that there is not simply “one” Islam, but also
suggests that further study is needed to understand why Islamic arguments are applied differently
in different national contexts, and to better understand when such arguments are more likely to
be used.
The second hypothesis explored was whether a state’s history affects the way editorialists
judge the war. This hypothesis may not be provable with this data. One difficulty is the relatively
low percentage of editorials making explicitly historic arguments. Another problem is that it is
possible that even if no specific historic event is referred to in the editorial, history may still be
coloring the author’s perspective. To untangle this connection, additional data, beyond the scope
of content analysis, would be necessary.
Ultimately, this project has revealed that not only do the attitudes toward war expressed in
editorials vary cross-nationally, but the arguments used to justify those attitudes also differ. Even
when the final judgment is the same – for example, the high prevalence of anti-war editorials in
all the samples – the reasons justifying such a position are not.
Convention