This thesis examines the nationalist expressions of Algerians under French colonization from 1919 to 1954, and black Americans in the United States of America in the late 1950's and 1960's. The formation of political organizations within both the Algerian and black American communities was a response to unbearable political, economic and social conditions borne for a long time. This study focuses on the aims of these nationalist organizations, and also the means and ways by which they challenged the political, economic and social domination. Algerians and black Americans experienced two systems of domination: colonialism and capitalism. These generated racism as an ideology that enforced the power and privilege of French settlers and white Americans. The similarities of the political response of Algerians and black Americans are the gist of this thesis. Where differences exist these are also analysed. Political organizations within both communities expressed solutions which reflected different ideological trends. Some advocated a form of assimilation and a desire to be part or closely allied to France or the United States. Others thought that'restructuring the political, economic and social frameworks and respecting the national and ethnic characteristics would improve the condition and the quality of life of each community. A third political expression believed that separation from the French and American nations as the best outcome for a true emancipation. The different manifestations of nationalism exposed the inadequacy and injustice of the then prevailing systems and fought for human dignity, better life and equality.

This thesis examines the intersection of the personal and professional lives of former Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles. It argues that Welles sexuality had a formative influence on his worldview and, hence, his career as a policymaker, his place in the Roosevelt administration, and his legacy in U.S. political and diplomatic history. Using sexuality as a lens through which to view his career, this thesis provides fresh interpretations of the major events in Welles’ career while offering new insights into the contradictions, ambiguities, and continuities in Welles’ thinking and behaviour. Welles’ sexuality permeated his entire life. It impacted the trajectory of his career, shaped his personality, and altered the dynamics of his worldview. Beginning with formative experiences that positioned Welles as an outsider, Welles’ upbringing and sexuality conditioned him with unique characteristics and beliefs that shaped his professional life. These characteristics were manifested in three ways: an aversion to military solutions to diplomatic problems, a belief in paternalistic idealism toward the world outside the U.S., and the development of a close political bond with a fellow outsider to conventional masculinity, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Through a close reading of Welles’ papers, documents from his formative years, accounts by his contemporaries, and a consideration of the broader political and societal context in which he operated, this thesis shows how examining Welles’ personal life is crucial to understanding his impact on American foreign policy. This thesis is not a straight diplomatic history. Its primary focus is on Welles as an individual and how he embodied the intersection between sexuality, power, and diplomacy. It directly engages with the existing historiography about Welles by challenging the portrayals of his sexuality as aberrant and incidental. That said, while the components of personality and sexuality are fundamental to this thesis’ argument, this thesis does not argue Welles’ sexuality is the sole or allencompassing criterion by which his career can be understood. Rather, this thesis highlights the salience of sexuality alongside more traditional metrics of ideology, politics, culture, and power, in order to provide a richer understanding of Welles’ contributions to the political and diplomatic history of the U.S., particularly with regards to Latin America, World War Two, and the internal politics of the Roosevelt administration. More broadly, it expands the scope of analysis for historians studying foreign policy and diplomacy by demonstrating how sexuality shapes the attributes and outlook of foreign policy decision makers.

United States' policy towards Indonesia (the Netherlands East Indies) during the Truman and Eisenhower Presidencies involved many of the major issues of the time, including decolonisation, access to economic resources, Cold War strategy and Washington's involvement with Asian nationalism. Throughout the period, the emphasis of American policy was on the integration of Indonesia into world capitalism, an objective which became intertwined with Indonesia's growing strategic value to the US, from 1948 onwards, and its subsequent importance as a scene of confrontation with the Soviets and Communist China. By 1961, Washington's policies had failed in all their major aims and it seemed possible that Indonesia would become a communist state. The Eurocentric bias of American policy consistently dominated US relations with Indonesia. During the independence struggle, between 1945 and 1949, Washington's support for The Netherlands ended only when it became a greater threat to stability than the nationalists. However, after independence, its pro-Dutch inclinations were revived over the West Irian question. The militant anti-communism of John Foster Dulles, the Americans' inability to come to terms with Asian nationalism, exemplified by its handling of the Bandung Conference, in 1955, and the deep personal dislike of Sukarno by senior Administration officials combined to cause a deterioration in relations which culminated in a CIA-sponsored rebellion, in 1957/58. The determination and execution of American policy was influenced by Australia, which favoured Indonesian independence, and which, in the 1950's, exerted great influence in Washington, especially over West Irian. Along with the United Kingdom, whose forces had liberated the Netherlands East Indies in 1945, Australia had a central role in the CIA-backed rebellion. American policy minimised the role of the United Nations in the Indonesian independence struggle and over West Irian in order to inhibit the Soviet's ability to intervene.

This thesis studies the implications of the selection of empirical evidence underpinning reported interpretations and conclusions about US foreign policy towards India. US-India relations have been investigated by a number of scholars whose work has been reported in well-regarded books and journal articles. Their studies typically rely for empirical evidence on official documents, and occasionally on interviews. In spite of their qualities, none of these studies provides explicit rational for their selection of US and Indian primary sources and about the procedures and the criteria used to identify relevant information from these sources. This shortcoming poses a risk for the validity of their conclusions. To assess the nature of this risk, this thesis reports a fresh study of US foreign policy towards India in which all publicly available US documents are used. These documents are the basis of a Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), the results of which feed into the subsequent analysis. The substantive results of this research are compared with those in the existing literature. This comparison reveals, in addition to obvious similarities, important differences that can be attributed to unsystematic and incomplete use of empirical material in the existing literature. These differences, that emanate from a more explicit and systematic approach to evidence, provide grounds for a reassessment of the significance of many factors influencing US foreign policy towards India. This study identifies relevant factors that have so far been overlooked in the existing literature, and that need to be included in accounts to understand widely documented changes in this area of US foreign policy. Substantively, this thesis highlights the vital importance of the Clinton period in understanding the foreign policy of the United States, a period which had not been examined in sufficient detail by existing studies. Contrary to what most of the existing literature suggests, elements of continuity between the Clinton and the Bush administrations are particularly important to explain the evolution of US foreign policy towards India. In spite of the change in the presidency from Democrat to Republican, President George W. Bush (hereafter Bush) continued to hold the same level of commitment shown by his predecessor in developing closer strategic ties with India, making it a priority of his foreign policy. This aspect is particularly important to furthering a more thorough understanding of US relations with India.

This project works to unveil emotional experiences on segregated public transportation from 1896 to 1964. In so doing, it opens up how feelings evoked by racial conflict on public transportation helped to fuel the black rights movement that demanded the end of the segregated system. Through examining plaintiffs of civil rights test cases, Pullman porters, members of the armed forces in the Second World War, and grassroots activists of the 1950s and 1960s, the thesis reassesses the familiar topics of segregated transportation and black resistance to it through the lens of emotions. It shows not only that the feelings of African Americans were systematically dismissed, ignored, and suppressed, but also that the expression of certain emotions was mandatory for black passengers. Deviating from these emotional norms often resulted in verbal or physical abuse, hindering the protest of discriminatory treatment perpetrated by white police, bus drivers, conductors, and passengers. Finally, the thesis uncovers how black activists responded to this everyday form of racial control by converting emotional self-regulation into a weapon with which to attack segregation. The emotional context of segregated public transportation in this period has hitherto been neglected, but following the emotional turn in history, this project works to illuminate the full extent of the racial control white Americans exerted over the expression of African American emotion. Recognising this distinct form of oppression has implications for the study of the Jim Crow era more widely, and in particular the long civil rights movement.

This thesis explores the US mediation strategies applied during the management of the Egyptian-Israeli dispute in the period of 1973-1975. More specifically, it focuses on the crucial US role in bringing Egypt and Israel towards a settlement from the 1973 October War to the brink of the Camp David settlement, realised under President Jimmy Carter. The centrepiece of the thesis is the mediation efforts during the Republican Presidencies of Richard Nixon (1969-74) and Gerald Ford (1974-77). This thesis examines how diverse contextual variables change and interact with the mediator’s methods of sequencing and packaging of the issues in conflict management. The key analysis emerges from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s mediation, especially by looking at his ‘concession-hunting’ procedure and its accompanying ‘hard bargaining’ tactics after the 1973 October War. The analysis incorporates specific case studies of Kissinger’s mediation efforts, which led to the signature of the Sinai I and Sinai II disengagement agreements, but also resulted in the reassessment of the US foreign policy towards Israel in March 1975. In this thesis it will be seen that concession-hunting processes differed in their processes and outcomes This thesis concludes that in a protracted conflict, the concession-hunting is a method preferable for bridging the gap between the disputants, as compared to the holistic approach. If performed by a mediator with concrete ‘powers’, it extracts concessions in a gradual manner and allows for third party implementation of various methods to ‘soften up’ the hard negotiating positions of the disputants.

By the late 1930s, it became clear to informed Americans that the international system in East Asia had failed. The outbreak of war between Japan and China in 1937 demonstrated that the current system could no longer provide stability in the region. Four years later, Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor ended American neutrality and united the regional conflict with the World War. Even as war raged, Japanese aggression raised questions for the future. If Imperial Japan, the most powerful country in Asia, were defeated, what might replace its regional dominance? What would become of its colonies? What had caused Japanese militarism, and how could its resurgence be prevented? If America were to emerge from the war powerful enough to reshape global politics, what future for Japan would best serve American interests? The story of how these questions were answered and why a particular set of responses became American policy is the subject of this dissertation. This work provides an account of the post-war planning process and the deliberative period which shaped American policy towards Japan after surrender in 1945. It will look at how these questions came to be answered, both in terms of the formulation of actual policies implemented after the war and the inputs and environment in which responses developed. Much has been written on the outcome of these choices, there have been many histories of the postwar occupation of Japan and postwar US-Japan relations. But very little attention has been given to where the eventual policy came from. By bringing the aims and intentions of the planners to light, this work provides a new perspective on the policy that the United States imposed on Japan during the occupation period and after.

This thesis analyses the rhetoric which President George W. Bush used to meet the demands resulting from the atrocities of 9/11, during the immediate aftermath and in days and weeks following those atrocities. Bush’s presidential rhetoric was far more than just words it was an entire performance, and it is that performance and the people behind the construction and dissemination of the language and performance with which this thesis is interested. This research adds knowledge to the field of presidential rhetoric by adopting the analytical approach of a rhetorical critic to scrutinize Bush’s post 9/11 rhetoric. The analysis reveals a sophisticated interpretation of the various levels of meaning available to the American public and the wider audience given the social and cultural period in which the atrocities and rhetoric transpired. The same analytical approach is utilized to distinguish previous presidential rhetoric after unique attacks with that of Bush post 9/11. This delivers a nuanced understanding of the influence of the media, speechwriters, presidential personality and the historical period in the formation and presentation of presidential rhetoric. This is achieved by scrutinizing the events (‘rhetorical situations’ (Bitzer, 1968)) including the sinking of the Lusitania, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the xii Iran hostage siege and comparing and contrasting these to 9/11 and Bush’s response to the demands of that situation. The thesis characterizes and analyses the way presidential rhetoric incorporated the ‘rhetoric of otherness’ (Otto, 1973) through religious myths to delineate the boundaries for the American public to gain an understanding of why the attacks occurred and how they needed to respond. This may be referred to as the patriotic discourse.

The history of the United States’ revolutionary origins has been a persistently prevalent source of reference in the public speeches of modern American presidents. Through an examination of the character and context of allusions to this history in presidential rhetoric since 1945, this thesis presents an explanation for this ubiquity. America’s founding heritage represents a valuable – indeed, an essential – source for the purposes of presidential oratory. An analysis of the manner in which presidents from Harry Truman to Barack Obama have invoked and adapted specific aspects of this heritage in their public rhetoric exposes a distinctly usable past, employed in different contexts and in advancing specific messages. Chapters devoted to the references of modern presidents to the Declaration of Independence, to the Constitution, and to four of the nation’s Founding Fathers, demonstrate that distinct elements of the founding heritage can be invoked in different ways. In sum, however, they reveal that allusions to this history have served three, sometimes overlapping, purposes in modern presidential discourse. Firstly, and most commonly, this history has proved an essential source on the numerous occasions in which presidents have reflected upon and reaffirmed the enduring character of American national identity. Secondly, such is the prominence of the founding heritage in the collective memory of Americans that presidents have been able to invoke elements of this familiar history pertinent to their discussion of a diverse range of contemporary concerns. Finally, and most significantly, this rhetoric has very often been applied for more pragmatic and partisan reasons. Given the veneration of the founding heritage in American culture and the acceptance that the democratic ideals then established remain essential to the purpose and direction of the nation, this thesis argues that presidents have found political value in implying their own inheritance of the Founders’ incontestable legacy. In speeches delivered across the shifting contexts of the post-war period, presidents have explicitly aligned their policy goals with the values and vision of the nation’s first leaders, interpreting and adapting the Founders’ words in a manner supportive of their public message.

The history of contact between Plaid Cymru and Welsh expatriate communities has been a neglected narrative. This thesis goes part of the way to remedying that situation by focusing on the interaction that occurred between Welsh-Americans and Plaid Cymru from 1925 to 1945. The party of 1925-1945 was not the same political entity as it is in 2015 and hence this study seeks to explore and understand Plaid’s essence during the specified time period. The ‘Welshness’ of Welsh-America is also explored, in order to better understand the ‘Welsh identity’ that was in existence at the time. The engagement between Plaid Cymru and Welsh-America occurred at an individual level, through personal correspondence, and also at an institutional level, through the Welsh-American press. That press, both English and Welsh medium, took a great interest in the party and played a part in Plaid’s fund-raising strategy. By interpreting these levels of engagement we arrive at a fuller understanding of how Plaid Cymru and Welsh-America interacted during the years from 1925 to 1945.