This diploma thesis is an analysis of Bush and Obama administrations' approach towards Sino-American military relations. The topic of this thesis is the military cooperation between the People's Republic China (PRC) and the United States. The paper analyzes the trends and topics of the military-to-military contacts through the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) theory. The bilateral relationship between the two countries is the most important relationship in the 21st century and its development has worldwide implications. Historically, there have been multiple points of tension where interests of both countries collided, many of which persisted to be sources of the new unease. The American support to Taiwan through numerous arms-sales, increased Chinese militarization of space, cyberspace and the South China Sea are the main causes of reluctant military-to-military cooperation between the PRC and the U.S. It is vital for the rest of the global community that both superpowers keep an acceptable amount of tensions between their armies and ideally pursue more cooperation than competition. The paper concludes that the Sino-American military relations have gone through an on-and-off pattern during both Bush administrations, mainly due to aforementioned American support for Taiwan, and due to the types...

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.

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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.

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.

The purpose of this thesis is to bring forward and discuss the American vision for space exploration found at NASA's homepage, how the vision is popularised and why. NASA's homepage is analyzed as popularized science and the theoretical perspective emanates from the field of popular science and especially the work of Johan Kärnfelt. The historical reference is made up by Howard E McCurdy and he's thoughts about space and the American imagination. The analysis is based on a number of documents that popularize the vision for space exploration and is intended for the public. These documents describe the future plan for NASA and US space exploration. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur de amerikanska rymdvisionerna gestaltats på NASA:s hemsida, hur dessa populariseras samt vilka de bakomliggande drivkrafterna kan tänkas vara. NASA:s hemsida kommer att ses som populariserad vetenskap och det teoretiska perspektivet utgår från den populärvetenskapliga genren där en stor del av det teoretiska underlaget utgår från docenten Johan Kärnfelts tankar om populariseringen av vetenskap. Som historisk referens används professor Howard E. McCurdys tankar om den amerikanska rymdvisionen. Materialet som ingår i analysen är hämtat från NASA:s hemsida. Samtliga dokument handlar om den amerikanska visionen om rymden och USA:s fortsatta aktiviteter i rymden.