This thesis highlights the value of symbolic politics research for a comparative study of the political leadership of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Most studies of symbolic politics neglect to explain their theoretical foundations. In contrast this analysis offers a detailed explanation of Murray Edelman's writings. It also spells out the overlaps between Edelman's thinking and the concepts of political culture, symbolic interactionism and systems theory, particularly as regards their view of the function of symbolisation in the political process. It is proposed that symbolic politics research needs to be more integrative, focusing on symbolisation both as a powerful tool in the hands of political leaders and as a device that assists the public in interpreting political reality. Existing symbolic politics research has preferred to investigate the symbolic dimension of specific political events or particular policies. This study shows that symbolic politics can also be applied in an institutional context, that is to the Reagan Presidency and the Thatcher Premiership. Reagan's and Thatacher's symbolic politics are separated into different types and strategies ranging from symbolic problem solving to the culture of celebrity. Both case studies also demonstrate that political leaders' biographical backgrounds and administrations' media strategies are crucial for successfully implementing symbolic politics. This thesis makes a contribution to a neglected area in political science, that is to the study of the symbolic meaning of the British prime minister. Conventionally the prime minister has been regarded merely as a symbol of the political process, however in recent years the symbolic meaning of the prime minister has become more elaborate. What is emerging is a symbolic premiership not unlike the symbolic presidency in the United States.

This thesis argues that much of the political historiography is mistaken in portraying the post-1960s United States as a nation moving inexorably to the right. It also argues that historians should not understand the Democratic Party as being in terminal decline between 1972 and 1984, marginalised by a coalescing conservative Republican majority. Indeed, taking as its focus the U.S. Congress, this thesis asks why the remarkable resilience of the congressional Democratic Party has been overlooked by historians. It further asks why that resilience did so little to help the party in subsequent years. The Democratic revival in the elections of 1974 and 1976, so often dismissed as a post-Watergate aberration, was in fact an authentic political opportunity that the party failed to exploit. Exploring various Democratic factions within Congress that competed to shape their party's public philosophy, this thesis seeks to show how grander liberal ambitions were often subordinated to the logic of legislative politics and policymaking. The underlying theme is the unsuitability of Congress as an arena for the discussion and refinement of post-Great Society liberalism. Again and again, the legislature displayed a remarkable facility for undermining iconoclasm and stalling policy experimentation. Institutional reforms in the early 1970s, supposed to reinvigorate the Congress and the congressional Democratic Party, actually succeeded only in intensifying the fragmentation of both. Congressional politics became more entrepreneurial and less party-oriented, leaving legislators with few incentives to look beyond their own political fortunes to the party's future prospects. Enduring Democratic strength in Congress meant that Capitol Hill remained at the centre of the party's efforts to reclaim its preeminent position in American politics. The fact that the Democrats never experienced a protracted period of minority status, as the Republicans did during much of the mid-twentieth century, left them ill-equipped and without a powerful incentive to think in broader terms about their party's mission.