abstract: The Legacy of the Filibuster War: National Identity, Collective Memory, and Cultural Anti-Imperialism is a dissertation project analyzing how the Filibuster War becomes a staple for Costa Rican national identity. This work presents several challenges to traditional theories of modernization in the creation of nationalism. By focusing on the development of cultural features defined by the transformation of collective memory, this project argues that national identity is a dynamic process defined according to local, national, and international contexts. Modernization theories connect the development of nationalism to the period of consolidation of the nation-state, usually during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The Costa Rican case demonstrates that, while modernization coincides with the creation of symbols of official nationalism, the Filibuster War became a symbol of national identity beginning in the 1850s, and it has been changing throughout the twentieth century. Threats to sovereignty and imperialist advances served to promote the memory of the Filibuster War, while local social transformations, as the abolition of the army and internal political conflict forced drastic changes on the interpretation of the war and the establishment of a national narrative that adjusts to social transformation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. History 2013

This thesis deals with legislative obstruction in the United States Senate. It presents the filibuster as one of the key procedural tools in the hands of a legislative minority during the consideration of legislative proposals, presidential nominations and international treaties. At first it presents the main theoretical approaches to the topic and the historical development of Senate procedures. A key theme of the work is the necessity to distinguish between formal and informal provisions that determine how Senate business is conducted, since the formal text of the Standing Rules of the Senate is rutinely bypassed by alternative strategies. The last part of the thesis confronts the existing theoretical approaches with the important procedural changes of the last several years and assesses whether these models are still valid in light of the new Senate procedures.

Le Congrès des Etats-Unis est une institution méconnue, mal comprise et souvent dénigrée, y compris par ses propres membres. On le dit en crise, inadapté aux exigences du monde moderne. L’objectif est donc d’évaluer les forces et les faiblesses objectives du Congrès contemporain pour le réinsérer dans la dynamique des freins et contre-pouvoirs au coeur du système politique américain. La période retenue s’étale de la victoire des Républicains menés par Newt Gingrich en 1994 jusqu’aux élections de mi-mandat de 2006 et au retour des Démocrates.  De la présidence Clinton à Bush, ces douze années offrent un contexte institutionnel varié. Elles forment une trajectoire historique fascinante de la rhétorique révolutionnaire qui accompagne les victoires de 1994 à la résignation d’une défaite marquée par une certaine corruption institutionnelle, partisane et idéologique. Le cœur de notre étude vise à étudier les conséquences institutionnelles du retour à un équilibre partisan dans les deux chambres du Congrès. La compétition entre les deux partis a été accompagnée par la polarisation du système politique. Notre étude retrace les débuts de l’entrée dans une nouvelle ère sur la colline du Capitole. On cherchera à combiner une approche politique et institutionnelle en analysant plus particulièrement trois domaines de l’action politique particulièrement révélateurs: les finances via la procédure budgétaire, la réforme de l’Etat providence, et les relations avec le judiciaire via les nominations des Juges d’Appel fédéraux, lieu privilégié de frictions entre la Maison-Blanche et le Sénat. À cette perspective institutionnelle, il s’agira d’ajouter une étude sociologique de cohorte des membres du Congrès, nécessaire pour comprendre les ressorts de l’action institutionnelle.  Au-delà des membres de la chambre, l’étude d’une période dominée par le parti de l’éléphant nous permettra de plonger au cœur du mouvement conservateur. Après avoir présenté les racines historiques de l'idéologie conservatrice qui domine au sein du Parti républicain, il s'agira de révéler comment un mouvement contestataire a transformé l’institution du Congrès mais aussi comment l’institution a transformé le mouvement conservateur et le Parti républicain.  Dans un contexte international de renforcement du pouvoir exécutif, l’étude du Congrès doit permettre de redécouvrir certaines leçons sur les modalités de fonctionnement d’un système démocratique. Il s’agit de montrer qu'au-delà des questions techniques, des jeux de procédures obscures, dans la tension qui anime le Congrès, se joue l’avenir du concept de démocratie représentative ; de rétablir un certain équilibre dans la perception du système américain : système plus complexe qu’il n’apparaît dans les médias et même parfois la littérature. On ne peut se contenter d’étudier la présidence impériale sans prêter attention au vortex qui siège, toujours, au coeur de la constitution. Ainsi, sans  faire un panégyrique du pouvoir législatif, il s’agira de remettre en cause la tentation d’un Césarisme plus ou moins démocratique qui chercherait à faire du Congrès une chambre d’enregistrement des volontés de l’exécutif. / The United States Congress is often disparaged including by its own members. The critics of the institution decry the gridlock on Capitol Hill and Congress's alleged inability to deal with the challenges of the modern world. The unpopularity of today's Congress calls into question its ability to represent the American people. In that context it is necessary to try to assess whether or not Congress is truly dysfunctional. To that end, this study proposes to study a period of twelve years from 1994 to 2006 during which the Republican party dominated the institution. In 1994, under the leadership of Newt Gingrich, the Republicans returned to the majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. In 2006, after another midterm election, the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate were soundly defeated. Drawing on the long and tortuous history of the relationship between the Republican party and conservatism, the new majorities proposed large-scale change that amounted to a conservative revolution. They had initially laid out a clearly conservative agenda that insisted on balancing the budget and reducing the size of government. A detailed study of their fiscal policy and their attempts at entitlement reform over the period actually leads us to conclude that they eventually governed over ever larger deficits and a growing federal government whose policies were adjusted to favor different portions of the population. It is therefore necessary to try to account for the discrepancy between the initial goals and the eventual results. This entails studying first the evolution of the Republican members of Congress themselves to see whether the policy changes can be explained by the members becoming more moderate. Another explanation centers on the relationship between the members of the Congress and their constituents. The Republican majorities could have been forced to moderate their positions by the voters themselves in the elections of 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004. Here the complex interplay that implies the interpretation of election results comes into play. Over the past decades, the American political system has been polarizing clearly. The growing ideological gap between the two parties and their bases calls into question the institutional stability of an institution built on the necessity to compromise. Especially since both parties have polarized while the margins of the majorities have grown more narrow. It is thus essential to look at the constraints set up by the institutional system. The arcane nuances of the legislative process directly impinges on the content of legislation. Indeed, if the majority rules decisively over the House of Representatives, in the Senate, the minority can very easily block most initiatives. The growing recourse to procedural shortcuts offered by the budget process is a testament to that fact.Finally, the relationship with the president of the United States is very much a factor in the equation. The twelve years of Republican domination in Congress covers two very different periods. Until January 2001, they had to battle with President Clinton in a context of divided government. Following George W. Bush's election in 2000, they started working under the command of the White House. The stark contrast in the way Senate republicans dealt with the two presidents when it came to their judicial nominees for the Federal Courts of Appeal offers an excellent opportunity to evaluate the continuing yet variable strength of the system of checks and balances set up by the U.S. Constitution. A deeper understanding of the workings of the contemporary Congress might allow for a more nuanced vision of the institution as much more than a roadblock on the road of presidential leadership and, perhaps, lead to a better appreciation of the way its members are trying or failing to fulfill their constitutional duty.