published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Politics and Public Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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American composition classrooms focus on teaching students to be assertive, self-assured, and definitive. What they do not tend to emphasize is how to reach mutual understandings, especially when communication takes place across cultural borders. This dissertation explores interdisciplinary perspectives on intercultural communication and alternatives to argument to suggest possibilities for building a rhetoric that better enables understanding between cultures. In this text I challenge assumptions about culturally based rhetorical strategies, question the tendency to teach argumentative writing in American composition classes, propose rhetorical strategies for reaching mutual understanding across cultures, and show the positive feelings of contemporary university students toward nonargumentative writing assignments.This dissertation has two main aims. The first aim is to show that trying to manufacture a one-to-one correspondence between a culture and its communication strategy is not as straightforward as it may seem. Such efforts not only tend to essentialize the differences between cultures, but they also ignore the multiple strategies that people from all cultures use to deal with complex rhetorical situations. By analyzing press releases from both the United States and North Korea, I show that categorizing an entire culture's communication style under one label is a mistake. Instead, I show that in different situations both Americans and Koreans use a variety of rhetorical strategies in their communication. The second aim of this dissertation stems from the first. Once I have shown that people across cultures are both the same and different and that our use of language reflects this reality, I call for a change in our educational practices in order to better reflect these complexities. I show how teaching alternatives to traditional academic argumentation can better foster intercultural understanding by describing a research-based writing assignment I designed that asks students to explore controversial issues nonagumentatively. This assignment encourages students to explore the many facets involved in complex situations and avoid simplistic either-or thinking. In meeting this challenge, students often make use of collaborative writing and go beyond traditional text formats to create hybrid texts. Overwhelmingly they report positive reactions to such innovative writing strategies.

Elections---often to a considerable degree---influence the fiscal policies pursued by governments installed on the basis of their results. Nonetheless, government behaviour is typically modelled exogenously, usually by means of a benevolent, permanently installed "social planner." However, since fiscal policies, devised by democratically elected governments, complement the decentralised pricing system, which---as shown by Samuelson (1954)---is incapable of optimally allocating both private and public goods, the social-planner approach is viewed as being an unsatisfactory tool for the purpose of describing the political aspects of economic decisions. / In the absence of a "first-best," Pareto-optimal tax system, fiscal policies are implemented as a result of inter-household "conflicts" over tax rates and public spending. In order to be able to overcome the theoretical difficulties encountered in previous contributions to the Economic Theory of Politics, this text will propose a model that explicitly depicts---"democratically aggregated"---political decisions made on the level of every individual. / In this thesis, it will be shown that (i) a country's overall budget can be derived endogenously without relying on the theoretical shortcut of interpersonal preference aggregation, (ii) electoral fluctuations be explained on the basis of the changes to the individuals' particular income and wealth situations, (iii) political behaviour be described in terms of votes and abstentions as well as party membership and ideology, and (iv) the crucial importance of a country's wealth distribution be discussed in the context of economic stability and the role of government.

This contribution to the understanding of the dynamics of domination and resistance will focus on the nature and development of Irish language activism in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the subsequent response of the British State when faced with this challenge to its cultural hegemony. The research is theoretically framed using Raymond Williams’ model of cultural hegemony and James Scott's model of disguise and surveillance, and is based on fifteen months of in-depth fieldwork in Northern Ireland, which I undertook from February 13, 1990 to May 10, 1991. It has been argued that not all Irish language activism is revolutionary, but instead, to use Williams' terminology, has both alternative and oppositional ideologies as major components. While both alternative and oppositional Irish language activists have recovered the Irish language as "an effective element of the present," and are using it to challenge the legitimacy of British cultural hegemony in Northern Ireland, the difference lies in their ultimate goals. Alternative Irish language activists are seeking a permanent space for the Irish language in Northern Ireland, regardless of the political outcome of the present conflict. On the other hand, oppositional Irish language activists, have made the Irish language an integral part of their struggle for self-determination. Alternative Irish language activists have focused their efforts on demanding that the public status of the Irish language be raised, and on building an Irish-medium education system that would be the foundation of a permanent Irish language infrastructure in Northern Ireland. Central to oppositional Irish language activism is the struggle for the cultural and linguistic rights of republican prisoners. However, the State justifies the shunning of these demands by citing the security risk they may engender. Oppositional Irish language activists, in particular Sinn Fein (the political wing of the Republican Movement), have adopted a strategy of "encouraging" and “supporting" alternative Irish language groups, thus creating the a priori appearance of a common goal. Since Sinn Fein does not assume a direct leadership role within the Irish language movement, any refusal of the cultural demands of alternative Irish language activists by testate, can be labelled as discriminatory toward the legitimate cultural rights of an ethnic minority. Hence, efforts by the State to dismiss the challenge by alternative Irish language activists by branding it as revolutionary, have been ineffectual. British cultural hegemony in Northern Ireland, it is argued, is both powerful and vulnerable. The reaction of the British State to the challenge of Irish language activists has varied, at times with its interpretation of the challenge, and at other times seemingly at will. Prior to 1980, attempts were made to exclude the Irish language and culture from Northern Ireland, branding it as "foreign” and "subversive." Since 1989, the approach of the British State has been a re-interpretation of the Irish language and culture into the Northern Ireland context, recognizing it as one of the "two traditions" of the State. This move to neutralize Irish language resistance, while welcomed by many alternative Irish language activists, has seriously ruptured the unity of the majority in Northern Ireland. As a result, the British government finds itself at an impasse. Because of strong oppositional and alternative Irish language resistance, the State is prevented from "excluding" Irish language and culture in Northern Ireland, but similarly, differences within influential and dominant groups will not allow the conciliation of Irish language resistance by a “process of incorporation." The stage is thus set for an examination of the background, growth, and durability of the Irish language movement, juxtaposed with the hegemonic determination of a State bent on cultural subjugation, in the boisterous environment of Northern Ireland.

In and around the princely courts of Europe, Renaissance humanists drew upon the teachings of classical antiquity, often reinterpreting them to suit their own intellectual and ethical needs. One such need concerned balancing notions of achievement predicated upon gaining others' favor, with ideals of constancy and integrity. Evidence of this dilemma can be found in the works of Niccolo Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, and Michel de Montaigne. In each of these cases, the attachment to differing conceptions of accomplishment and human dignity resulted in contradictions in their writings, and in their lives.

One of the most challenging issues for students of international relations is the interstate dimension of ethnic conflict in both its secessionist and irredentist forms. This thesis contributes to an understanding of the interstate dimension of ethnic conflict in three ways. First, the thesis provides a more precise delineation of the causal relationship between ethnic and interstate conflict. Second, the thesis develops a model to identify the conditions under which ethnic conflict is most likely to lead to interstate conflict. Third, and finally this thesis provides insight into a theory and policy for management and resolution of ethnic conflict. The results of this research are used to identify the international conditions and actions that affect the dynamics and resolution of ethnic conflict. From that perspective, the central goal of this inquiry is to lay the groundwork for preventive peacekeeping. / The inquiry unfolds in five stages. First, a formal model, specifying the precise causal relationship of the selected variables and their interaction effects, is presented. Second, two cases (Somali irredentism and the Indo-Sri Lankan crisis) are used to test the assumed linkage. Third, aggregate data from the International Crisis Behavior Project data base, for the period 1918-1988, are used to test the explanatory power of variables derived from the combined framework. Fourth, two additional cases (Thai Malay separatism and the Balkans War) are used to test the most relevant propositions from the previous phase. Fifth and finally, based on the degree of support for propositions from both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the model is refined. Policy relevant and theoretical contributions are presented in the light of the findings. Directions for further research also are discussed.

Situated between the state and civil society, the role of the public sphere is seen to be one of mediating between the two through the circulation of information, ideas, and the subsequent formation and propagation of public opinion. However, there is an ambivalence within conceptions of the public sphere in terms of how it is to best effect this mediation. This sense of ambiguity in the understandings of the public sphere is a reflection of a deeply rooted and unresolved tension about whether democracy should mean some kind of popular power or an aid to decision-making. This dissertation argues that defining democracy as a political method provides a means by which to navigate the ambiguity imbued within current understandings of the function of the public sphere. Understanding democracy as a public, instrumental process underscores the extent to which the character of the public sphere should be seen as being derived from and shaped by the institutions and practices that make up the state. Of all the institutions within the public sphere, it is within perceptions of the media that the conceptual tensions underlying the public sphere and democratic theory are best reflected. While the media are a major forum for political communication, the nature of this forum remains theoretically underdeveloped and conceptually misconceived in the literature. It is the contention of this dissertation that the political role of the media should not be understood in relation to some abstract idea of democracy and public opinion, but rather in contrast with and connection to the concrete political institutions and practices of democracy.

In the area of mass communications and media sociology, connections between theoretical claims and empirical evidence have often been tenuous. Using American national Election Study data gathered by the Center for Political Studies, this dissertation tests a series of hypotheses about the political impact of the mass media. The work profiles the news audience, and examines the public's reliance upon television and newspapers as sources of political information. Next, evidence is brought to bear upon the set of pessimistic assumptions that television news personnel hold about the tastes and capacities of the news audience. Finally, a crucial test is developed in order to evaluate five competing and contradictory hypotheses, all attempting to explain the relationships between the consumption of political materials through the mass media, political interest, and political participation. Of the previously untested claims assessed in the thesis, few were supported by the evidence gathered in research.