American Foreign Policy towards Iran: 2006-2010 author: Daniel Soukop date: 16 May 2013 Abstract In the long term, relations between the United States and Iran can be painted as complicated, tense and hostile. This diploma thesis analyzes the American foreign policy towards Iran between 2006 and 2010. This time period was essential for American-Iranian relations for several reasons. First, the American rhetoric towards Iran got significantly intense during the George W. Bush administration. It started with the Bush's "Axis of Evil" and peaked with the National Security Strategy of 2006, according to which the United States were aiming at a complete change of Iranian internal and external behavior, and were ready to use all means necessary to achieve this ultimate objective. The highest Iranian leaders consequently gave in to paranoia and under the fear of losing their own power brought Iran into an even more defensive position, although the United States needed the direct opposite. Second, in February 2006, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) handed over the issue regarding the Iranian nuclear program to the UN Security Council. Thereby the United States got an opportunity to push for multilateral sanctions on Iran. Third, at the beginning of 2009, the United States awaited the change of...

Les approches psychologiques connaissent un essor dans l’étude des relations internationales. Elles sont essentielles dans l’étude du processus cognitif des leaders, qui est central à la prise de décisions en politique étrangère. Notre recherche porte sur l’axe d’engagement choisi par les États-Unis envers les alliés, de l’unilatéralisme au multilatéralisme, dans l’adoption des politiques étrangères et s’il est déterminé par la vision du monde des présidents. Parmi les politiques étrangères américaines adoptées entre 2001 et 2013, nous retenons les plus significatives en termes de multilatéralisme, afin de construire la variable dépendante. Le cadre théorique utilisé, le code opérationnel, propose l’analyse du schéma cognitif de leaders à l’aide d’une étude de contenu de leurs écrits et de leurs discours. Cette théorie énonce que la vision du monde inhérente à un leader influence le comportement et les décisions du gouvernement dans les relations internationales. Cette étude examinera les discours relatifs à la politique étrangère américaine prononcés lors des mandats de George W. Bush et lors du premier mandat de Barack Obama en tentant de comparer empiriquement les résultats de leur code opérationnel à leur degré de multilatéralisme avéré dans leurs décisions. Nos résultats ne montrent pas de liens directs entre la vision du monde des présidents et l’axe d’engagement adopté en politique extérieure. Nous en concluons que la méthode d’analyse quantitative ne nous permet pas de déceler de changements concrets entre les mandats des présidents. Nous proposons alors d'autres explications concurrentes comme la théorie des élites ou l’ordre international libéral qui pourraient mieux répondre à notre problématique. / Cognitive theories are increasingly recognized in international relations studies. They are necessary in the study of a leader's cognitive process which is central to foreign policy decision-making. This study focuses on the axis of commitment the United States has adopted towards allies, from unilateralist to multilateralist, and analyzes if it is influenced by the president’s worldview. American foreign policies adopted between 2001-2013 are selected according to their relevance to multilateralism to construct the dependent variable. Our theoretical framework is the operational code, which allows an evaluation of the cognitive scheme according to public and private content discourse analysis. This theory suggests that the president’s worldview has an impact on government's behaviour and decisions making within international relations. This research is based on George W. Bush’s foreign policy speeches during his two mandates and on Barack Obama’s first mandate speeches, seeking to empirically compare their operational codes to the levels of multilateralism resulting from their decisions. Our findings cannot establish a direct link between the president's worldview and their position on the foreign policy commitment axis. We conclude that our quantitative analysis method is not adapted to illustrate a tangible change between the president's mandates. Therefore, we suggest alternative explanations such as the elite theory and the liberal international order which could better answer our research question.

This thesis focuses on the question of preferential treatment by U.S. national newsmagazines of presidential candidates in the 2004 election as evidenced by their visual coverage. Using content analysis, all the visual depictions of candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry were analyzed for 10 visual attributes to determine whether one had received better pictorial treatment. This study asked if the newsmagazines had printed greater amounts of visuals overall for one candidate and if one candidate's visuals were more or less positive than the other. The author concludes that more coverage was given to Bush over Kerry in a 60/40 ratio in all three magazines, and overall, the pictures published for each candidate were positive and neither candidate was given preferential treatment by any of the magazines. The newsmagazines were not deemed biased for publishing more visuals of Bush because, though more visuals were of the president during September, the newsmagazines published nearly equal numbers of visuals in October and November, often pairing them in layouts. The magazines were also not biased in their selection of visuals. All three tended to publish more positive or neutral visuals and rarely did any significantly differing patterns emerge to show that the editors favored one candidate over the other. Those attributes that did reach significance had weak associations. This study is a replication and a continuation of visual media content analyses of the 1984, 1988, and 1996 campaign coverage by Moriarty and Garramone (1986), Moriarty and Poppovich (1989), and Waldman and Devitt (1998) respectively. This research adds to the body of media bias and agenda-setting among newspapers and magazines and visual media.

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Данное исследование посвящено изучению экологической политики США при администрациях Джорджа Буша-мл. (2001–2009), Барака Обамы (2009–2017) и Дональда Трампа (2017–2021), анализу стратегий реализации внутриполитической экологической повестки в рамках Организации Объединенных Наций, поиску партийной корреляции и оценке степени преемственности экологических курсов администраций. / This study examines US environmental policy during the George W. Bush (2001–2009), Barack Obama (2009–2017) and Donald Trump (2017–2021) administrations, analyze the strategies for implementing the domestic political environmental agenda at the United Nations, search for party correlation and assess the degree of continuity of environmental policies of the administrations.

This dissertation works against the longstanding literary critical premise that aesthetics and ethics are at odds. I challenge this notion by foregrounding the verse of four nineteenth-century-born and Northeastern-based poets who unapologetically prioritize aesthetic perception and experience in their writing. These poets—Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, Emily Dickinson, Olivia Ward Bush, and William Stanley Braithwaite—were well aware of the criticism politicians, social reformers, educators, business proponents, and even other writers leveled against the functional and ethical utility of poetry in an era when transatlantic industrial revolutions and innovations in manufacturing and transportation technology contributed to a national ethos that celebrated progress and productivity in the most concrete terms. These developments, coupled with moral and political divisions over slavery and the economic and psychic strain of a nationwide war that brought life’s precariousness into relief, spurred citizens to contemplate their sense of purpose in contexts ranging from the vocational to the existential. Writers and poets in particular faced continual pressures to defend the practical value of their work. What makes the four poets in this dissertation unparalleled, I suggest, is the way they challenge readers to revise and expand their understanding of the aesthetic by devoting poetic attention to unsettling and unsightly products and processes in the natural world. Moldering plant matter, heaps of manure, broom-ravaged spiderwebs, and fragments of driftwood; the kinds of waste and remains normally deemed indecorous for nineteenth-century verse become vibrant and arresting in the work of these poets. Yet while each poet approaches humble and neglected phenomena as worthy of aesthetic treatment, they do so without idealizing the unpalatable and disregarded subjects they portray in verse. The attention they devote to the abject—a witnessing they extrapolate from literal to human nature—is, as I show over the course of this dissertation, an ethical and political act. In addition to upholding the unsettling and unglamorous qualities of the natural subjects they honor, these poets also abstain from sentimentalizing the elements of lived experience that inform their writing, and refuse to downplay the often demanding process of poetic composition itself. While this dissertation’s insistence on regarding aspects of nature that nineteenth-century poetry has traditionally neglected is, in part, an ecocritical intervention, my project is also a call to dignify the artistic labors that reframe overlooked natural phenomena as worthy of aesthetic attention. To portray writing as work is to regard the craft as just as substantial and legitimate a pursuit as occupations whose effects are more straightforwardly measurable in practical terms. Indeed, each poet in this dissertation insists upon depicting poetic making as a labor that requires the same dexterity as the construction of an architectural structure and that has as dramatic and far-reaching effects as military and legislative developments. Far from posing an escapist diversion from the social and civic realities of their day, I argue, these poets frame aesthetic creation and experience as fundamental to human nature, especially during wartime and periods of political upheaval.

The three branches of government rely on public engagement for the prosperity of the nation. Moreover, informed public opinion is a fundamental tenant of democracy. With that in mind, this paper aims to explore the relationship between the Judicial Branch and the public. Specifically, this paper examines and questions the Supreme Court’s efficacy communicating with the public. American constituents are inundated on a daily basis by the clamor of D.C. politics. The twenty four hour news cycle has given way to politicized headlines and exaggerated pundit commentary on contentious national issues. In a technological age where information is instant and the public has become accustomed to soundbites for education, the Supreme Court is left out of place. Both the Executive Branch and Legislative Branch converse directly with the public when necessary. Politicians frequently address their constituents or discuss complicated issues with voters first hand. However, the Supreme Court has rejected this strategy and instead relies almost exclusively on the press to relay their decisions. The judicial branch is the only third of our government without constant communication to the American people. As a result, the judiciary is relatively ignored by its citizens. By discussing a number of landmark cases since the turn of the century, this paper aims to analyze how those decisions were both announced to the public by the media and how the public received them. The Court has certainly adopted the press as an agent of communication. But is the media truly the proper outlet for the Court’s rulings?

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Tal och texter kan innehålla så mycket; både uppenbara budskap och det som finns mellan raderna. Jag tror att vi kan lära oss mycket genom att ta del av andra människors ord och begrepp. Genom de begrepp vi använder uttrycker vi våra värderingar – det vi ser som bra och dåligt, viktigt och oviktigt. Människor i Västvärlden har genom historien generellt representerat ett idéarv som kan sägas vara specifikt för just Västvärlden. Ett sätt att tänka, se och tolka världen, som skiljer sig från människor i Öst. Annorlunda i Östs ögon. Och i Västs ögon är det Öst som är annorlunda. Där har man i generationer istället formulerat och omfamnat andra sätt att tänka, se och tolka världen. Ingen av dessa diskurser har förstås något självklart tolkningsföreträde och ingen kan ensam göra anspråk på sanningen. Men en tydlig konflikt existerar mellan de olika världsbilderna. Och den blir synlig bland annat i valen av ord och begrepp. Ord som frihet, framsteg, lydnad och rättvisa kan skapa olika associationer hos människor i Öst och Väst. Bakom orden och begreppen döljer sig de värderingar som är förhärskande i respektive diskurs. Jag har tittat närmare på några sådana värderingar för att se om de kan ge svar på frågor om orsakerna till konflikterna mellan Öst och Väst. Jag har härlett dessa värderingar bakåt i tiden för att komma åt de idéarv som två av diskurserna bygger på. Det är två diskurser med djupa rötter i historien – till synes oförenliga. Båda säger sig ha det rätta perspektivet och ofta även lösningar på världens problem. Men de tycks tala förbi varandra och se på varandra genom ett slags filter av fördomar, förutfattade meningar och oförsonlighet. När jag zoomat in några av dessa diskursers företrädare har jag sett att de båda diskurserna går att förstå och förklara genom att tillämpa teorier från idéhistorien. Jag har med hjälp av teorier om orientalism och occidentalism velat sätta fokus på politiska hållningar som kan uppfattas som ”extrema” och till synes liberala uppfattningar. Men vad är egentligen vad? Kan Usama Bin Laden hylla kärleken? Kan Tony Blair kräva lydnad? Det är angeläget att söka förståelse för de historiska sammanhang som ofta förblir outtalade eller ensidiga men som har betydelse för vår samtid. Jag är intresserad av hur Väst och Öst talar till och förhåller sig till varandra, med varandra och mot varandra. Med denna uppsats hoppas jag kunna bidra till lite större klarhet och insikt i den språkförbistring som orsakar konflikter i världen.