This article seeks to explain the influence of the democratic-peace thesis on
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attaching meaning to political concepts. The hermeneutical mechanism is understood
as a three-stage model in which theoretical constructions transform into
public conventions and then into political convictions. By
using discourse-tracing—analyzing the process in which the theoretical
discourse was transformed into political discourse—the article explores
two case studies in which the democratic-peace thesis played a political role: the
Israeli Right and its criticism of the Oslo accords, and the American
neoconservatives and their policies in the Middle East. En route, I will apply
Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to reconstruct constructivism from a
purely social theory to a sociopolitical theory that considers seriously the
political dimension of social reality. The model that is developed here advances our
metatheoretical understanding of theory as offering a holistic understanding of
reality, rather than a mere limited explanation of specific phenomena; highlights
theory’s involvement in real-world politics; and emphasizes
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