In his first term as president, George W. Bush was confronted with one of the worst national attacks in United States history: the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001. Through the devastation, however, President Bush triumphed in unifying and guiding this nation during what would become the height of his rhetorical leadership. Following his reelection in 2004, President Bush faced one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history: Category 4 Hurricane Katrina. In its aftermath, Katrina became known as "one of the worst mishandled disasters ever." Utilizing Kenneth Burke's pentad, this study analyzes the president's rhetorical response and the primetime network news coverage following each crisis in an attempt to determine how President Bush could fare so well in one instance, consoling and leading the American people, while falling short in his second major crisis during his term as president. / Master of Arts

Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 26 avril 2023) / Ce mémoire de maitrise étudie les ancrages permettant aux discours politiques d'être diffusés à travers le globe, et ce, sans perdre de référents. Cette capacité apparente qu'a le message de voyager introduit plusieurs questions sur la nature de ces référents culturels qui semblent partagées. Inspirés par les écrits de Jacques Ellul et Michel Freitag, nous posons que cette intercompréhension serait due à une nouvelle homogénéité culturelle. En effet, la diffusion du néolibéralisme aurait eu pour effet d'intégrer en son sein les différentes cultures en les rendant congruentes avec son mode de fonctionnement et ses valeurs. De cette dynamique d'homogénéisation émergerait une série de valeurs partagées à travers le globe que Jacques Ellul qualifie de techniciennes. C'est donc en jumelant la théorie ellulienne de la société technicienne à la théorie du cadrage informationnelle de Robert Entman que ce mémoire étudie l'utilisation du cadrage technicien dans les des discours argumentatifs prononcés par George W. Bush pendant sa présidence. Pour répondre à la question de recherche « Dans quelle mesure l'administration de George W. Bush utilise-t-elle les mythes propres à la société technicienne ellulienne dans les discours prononcés par le président durant son mandat ? », un modèle thématique et une analyse par dictionnaire sont effectués. Les résultats obtenus mettent en évidence l'omniprésence du cadrage technicien dans ces discours. En effet, bien que les périodes de crise soient marquées par une augmentation de l'utilisation du cadrage technicien, celui-ci est également utilisé dans les communications gouvernementales afin de décrire et justifier de nouvelles législations et de nouveaux investissements. Ce recours récurrent au cadrage technicien constitue le point de départ de notre réflexion sur le caractère idéologique des communications gouvernementales, et ce, malgré une prétention d'objectivité.

Presidents of the United States and other American policymakers have throughout history cited democracy promotion as one of the chief goals of American foreign policy, and the current administration of George W. Bush has been no exception. However, and notwithstanding the habitual endorsement of this objective by US administrations, the subject of democracy promotion has received relatively little academic attention. This study aims to correct this gap in the literature by considering two questions relating to United States democracy promotion. First, have the efforts of the US to spread democracy to other countries met with success? Second, is promoting democracy truly a priority of American policymakers, or is it rather window dressing cynically aimed at winning public and congressional support for foreign policy? I begin by defining the terms democracy and democracy promotion. I then use three recent case studies to answer the two questions outlined above, the first of which focuses on President Reagan’s policy towards Nicaragua. In the second case study I consider President Clinton’s policy towards Haiti, while the third deals with President George W. Bush’s policy towards Colombia. The evidence I present points to the conclusion that the United States has not been successful in its efforts to promote democracy in other countries, and that spreading democracy abroad is at best a secondary goal of American foreign policy. The evidence presented in the thesis also demonstrates the utility of foreign policy analysis-based approaches to the study of international relations.

Essay in Political Science, Advanced Course, by Christoffer Hagström “The Bush Administration´s view on international cooperation and international law and political-theoretical traditions influence on the administration´s foreign policy” Supervisor: Jan Olsson The purpose of this paper is to analyze the American foreign policy, particularly with regard to international cooperation and international law. The two following research-questions are used in order to fulfil the purpose: (1) what is the Bush-administrations´s view of of the place for international cooperation and international law in American foreign policy?, and (2) how does the administration´s foreign policy correspond to dominant political-theoretical thought-traditions? The traditions used are: liberalism, realism and neoconservatism. The sources of the study mostly include literature and policy-documents. The author conducts qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the Bush-administration´s policy document National Security Strategy of the United States from March 2006. First the document is summarized based on different criteria followed by categorizations of ideas connected with realism, liberalism and neoconservatism in the document. In the quantative analysis value-words that are appropriate for the various traditions is chosen. The frequency of those words can be seen as indications of the influence of the traditions in the thoughts of the Bush-administration, but is mostly seen as a complement to the qualtative analysis. The main conclusions of the paper are that the Bush-administration most often wish to act according to international law and to cooperate with other actors internationally in the long run, it may even be necessary. In the short run however, it may act outside the parameters of international organizations and international law in order to accomplish foreign policy-goals. Matters related to the security of the American state and people is considered much more important than international cooperation and law. Liberalism seems to be the tradition that has most affected the Bush-administration´s foreign policy. It is followed shortly thereafter by realism and neoconservatism seems to have had the least influence on the the thought-traditions. All of the them has been active in the making of the foreign policy.

À l’échelle macroscopique, à savoir celle du paysage, la couverture végétale des milieux arides apparaît comme fortement hétérogène. Cette organisation spatiale des peuplements est habituellement attribuée aux processus de facilitation et de compétition qui opèrent à l’échelle microscopique des individus végétaux. Le qualificatif d’auto-organisées fut donc attribué à ces végétations qui se structurent en l’absence d’hétérogénéité préexistante du milieu physique. <p><p>L’auto-organisation de la végétation fut particulièrement bien étudiée dans le cas des structures périodiques connues dès les années '50 sous le nom de brousses tigrées. Depuis les années '90, un pas en avant dans la compréhension de ce phénomène fut accompli grâce au développement de modèles mécanistes de la dynamique de la phytomasse et des ressources, émanant du cadre théorique de l'auto-organisation des structures dissipatives. Ces modèles se rejoignent sur un ensemble de prédictions robustes et vérifiables concernant la formation, le maintien et la modulation par l'environnement des structures macroscopiques. Durant le même laps de temps, notre niveau d’analyse a connu une expansion sans précédent, à la fois dans le temps et dans l’espace, grâce au développement de l’imagerie satellitaire et des outils d’analyse spatiale. Nous nous trouvons dès lors à un moment charnière pour la validation macroscopique des théories d’auto-organisation des végétations en milieu aride.<p><p>Le présent travail s'articule en quatre études, chacune traitant d'une prédiction différente. Nous avons mis en évidence les principales variables responsables de la formation des structures et de leur modulation en termes d’échelle et de géométrie. Enfin avons démontré la mobilité des structures sous l’effet d’une pente de terrain. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis examines the foreign policy of the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. A significant theme of Barack Obama's candidacy for presidency was "change"; more specifically change in policy from previous administration. Therefore, the thesis looks at the changes brought about by President Obama once he was elected. First, we look at foreign policy of the United States under President George W. Bush, then we look at foreign policy-related assertions of Barack Obama during his candidacy, and lastly we look at the actual policies of the new administration, with particular focus on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drones and extrajudicial killing, Guantanamo detention facility and extraordinary rendition, and NSA surveillance.

No description available.

This thesis responds to the longstanding call from constructivist and poststructuralist scholars for a turn to discourse. It focuses on the paradox of the ability of language to act as a constituting and constraining device within an agent-structure discussion. The Copenhagen School (CS), its attention to language and its concept of securitization is examined in terms of its strengths and weaknesses, including bringing discourse onto the security agenda to an unprecedented extent. This thesis seeks to speak security at a deeper level and move securitization beyond the moment of utterance and the notion of agents breaking free of rules that would otherwise bind, as well as beyond a singular definition of security. It is proposed that the CS framework can be theoretically complemented by Wittgenstein’s notion of language games on board. The analytical shift made by juxtaposing a speech act and a language game also foregrounds the link between language and rules. Wittgenstein’s idea of ‘acts of interpretation’ is also considered, and substantive questions are raised about what the language of security legitimates in principle and in practice. The Bush administration’s justifications for the 2003 Iraq war are taken as a point of departure, and covers how the Bush administration deployed the language of security to justify highly controversial moves. Their narrative about the use of the pre-emptive use of force without an imminent threat existing and ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ such as those seen in the Abu Ghraib photographs in the name of security exemplify that words matter. The arguments conclude that adjustments are needed in the way security is currently spoken in IR theory.

Thesis (MScConEcol (Conservation Ecology and Entomology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Two populations of Acacia mellifera were noted in Pniel, which is a semi-arid savanna, near Kimberley in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. One population appeared on a rocky, andesitic laval ridges (soil pHKCL 6.5-7.0) along the Vaal river. The other appeared in a sandveld area (soil pHKCL 4). Bush encroachment by A. mellifera was found to be more extensive on the rocky areas than in the sandveld and the two habitats differed extensively on soil pH, clay and silt contents and also on water holding capacities. The rocky habitat was thus deduced to have a higher CEC. Seeds were sampled on a logarithmic scale for allozyme analysis and also randomly in each of the two habitats for local adaptation tests, in which case lime (CaCO3) and organic matter (cow-dung) were used in a completely-crossed design. Detected interaction effects (between population source and pH; population source and organic matter and between pH and organic matter) and significant differences could not separate the two populations as the differences occurred across populations. Random genetic differences leading to phenotypic plasticity in the two observed populations, might be responsible for the observed phenotypic differences. Allozymic data showed no significant differences between the two populations and the genetic distance between and within the populations also confirmed that the two populations had not genetically differentiated. The Mantel Test on the two populations, showed nonsignificant results. Nei‟s UPGMA dendrogram revealed that the game farm subpopulations were more primitive and genetically related to each other. Despite differences in allozyme frequencies, between the sampled sites, genetic differentiation was found to be low (FST = 0.337). Nei‟s (1972) original measures of genetic distance ranged between 0.871 and 1.000 with a mean of 0.949 ± 0.053. The study concluded that the two observed populations had not genetically differentiated and no local adaptation could be established rather phenotypic plasticity was evident and resulted in the observed divergent growth forms. Nonetheless, the overall direction of spread of encroachment appeared to be the eastward. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Twee bevolkings van Acacia mellifera is gevind in Pniel, wat „n semi-ariede savanna is naby Kimberley in die Noord-Kaap provinsie van Suid-Afrika. Een bevolking het voorgekom op klipperige andesitiese lava riwwe (grond pHKCL 6.5-7.0) al langs die Vaalrivier. Die ander het voorgekom in „n sandveld area (soil pHKCL 4). Bos-oorskryding deur A. mellifera was meer uitgebreid op die klipperige areas as in die sandveld en die twee habitats het noemenswaardig verskil ten opsigte van grond pH, klei en silt inhoud asook waterhoukapasiteit. Dit kan was dus afgelei word dat die klipperige habitat „n hoër CEC het. Die sade was versamel op „n logaritmiese skaal vir allosiem-analise en ook ewekansig in die twee habitats vir lokale aanpassings toetse. In dié gevalle was kalk (CaCO3) en organiese material (koeimis) gebruik in „n totaal-gekruisde ontwerp. Bespeurde interaksie effekte (tussen bevolkings bron en pH; bevolkings bron en organiese material en tussen pH en organiese material) en noemenswaardige verskille kon nie die twee bevolkings skei nie, aangesien die verskille voorgekom het regdeur die twee bevolkings. Ewekansige genetiese verskille wat lei tot fenotipiese plastisiteit tussen die twee waargeneemde bevolkings mag dalk verantwoordelik wees vir die waargeneemde fenotipiese verskille. Allosiem-data het geen beduidende verskille gelewer tussen die twee bevolkings nie en genetiese afstand binne en tussen die bevolkings het ook bevestig dat die twee bevolkings nie geneties gedifferensiëer is nie. Die Mantel toets op die twee bevolkings het geen beduidende resultate gelewer nie. Nei se UPGMA dendogram get gewys dat die wildsplaas bevolkings was meer primitief en geneties verwant aan mekaar. Ten spyte van die allosiem frekwensies tussen die gemonsterde gebiede, was die genetiese differensiasie laag (FST = 0.337). Nei (1972) se oorspronlike meeting van genetiese afstand het tussen 0.871 en 1.000 beloop met „n gemiddeld van 0.949 ± 0.053. Die studie het bepaal dat die twee waargeneemde bevolkings nie geneties gedifferensiëer het nie en dat geen lokale aanpassing teenwoordig was nie. Fenotipiese plastisiteit was duidelik waarneembaar en het gelei tot die divergerende groeivorme. Nieteenstaande, was die algehele rigting van oorskryding ooswaarts.

This study analyzes the confirmation hearings discourse of Clarence Thomas and George Bush. Language constructs social reality. The United States has a history of racism and this history manifests itself in our language. The discourse of Clarence Thomas and George Bush created a social reality that equated opposition to Thomas' confirmation with racism using rhetorical strategies that included metaphor and narrative construction.