Western Universalism on Trial : A Comparative Analysis of Moral Reasoning in Western Political Communication on Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Palestine

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how moral reasoning is articulated within Western political communication in relation to the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Palestine conflicts. Focusing on official statements issued by the European Union and the United States during the first month following the outbreak of each conflict, the study analyzes how concepts such as human rights, civilian protection, self-defense, security, and responsibility are mobilized to construct political legitimacy. Rather than presupposing hypocrisy or double standards, the study approaches selectivity as an empirical question. Grounded in Carl-Henric Grenholm’s framework of critical political ethics, the thesis employs a qualitative textual analysis based on ideal types of moral reasoning, including political moralism, realism, cynicism, and critical political ethics. The analysis is further informed by theoretical perspectives developed by Judith Butler, Didier Fassin, and Elena Namli concerning grievability, humanitarianism, and universality in international politics. The findings demonstrate that similar universal moral vocabularies are employed across both conflict cases, but are connected to different patterns of responsibility attribution and political consequence. In the Ukraine-Russia case, moral and legal principles are more consistently linked to explicit condemnation and accountability. In the Israel-Palestine case, humanitarian concern is present, but responsibility attribution appears more unstable and frequently negotiated through security-oriented reasoning. The thesis argues that these differences reveal tensions within Western claims to universalism, where moral legitimacy is shaped not only by universal principles themselves, but also by how suffering, responsibility, and political agency are discursively recognized across different geopolitical contexts.