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In 1979, a handful of Nevada state officials sparked a movement to transfer the large unappropriated domain to the western states. For two years what became known as the Sagebrush Rebellion swept across the American West like brushfire, engaging westerners of all stripes in a heated dispute over the question of the public lands. In Utah, as elsewhere in the West, public officials, rural ranchers, miners, developers, academics, environmentalists, and concerned citizens joined the debate and staked sides. This episode underscored western relationships between people and nature and featured contests over competing ideologies in the West. But it probably did more harm than good in solving the problems of the West and even further polarized westerners against themselves. After just two years in the limelight, the Sagebrush Rebellion unspectacularly faded into public memory, partly as a result of environmental opposition but mostly because Ronald Reagan's administration steered public land policy in a new direction. Interior Secretary James Watt took steps to appease disgruntled westerners by loosening federal regulations on the public lands, but he opposed any efforts for a large-scale transfer. Thus the Sagebrush Rebellion ultimately failed; but still today the sentiment and conflicts that propelled it persist, continuing to color the panorama that is the American West.

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The thesis analyzes how the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush used force in response to incidents of international terrorism. Key players in each administration and whether they advocated a law enforcement approach or a war paradigm approach to counterterrorism are examined. In addition, Koh¿s pattern of executive initiative, congressional acquiescence, and judicial tolerance forms a theoretical lens through which to compare and contrast administrations. An assessment of the role of Congress in making the administrations¿ counterterrorism policies confirms the vitality of this pattern, and suggests future administrations will adhere to it. During the George W. Bush administration, Koh¿s pattern of executive initiative (led by personalities like Vice President Cheney), congressional acquiescence, and judicial tolerance combined with the 9/11 tragedy and pervasive fears of another attack to create a ¿perfect storm¿ known as the ¿war on terror¿. The research also analyzes to what extent the four administrations were constrained by international legal norms on the use of force, i.e. articles 2(4) and 51 of the UN Charter. On the domestic side, the thesis analyzes the extent to which American legal norms on the use of force constrained the administrations. Although the lack of compelling constraints on the use of force is present in all four administrations, the thesis indicates that the George W. Bush administration embodied an extreme example of this trend.

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This social history of science policy development emphasizes the impact on the agricultural community of federal policies regarding release of recombinant DNA (rDNA) organisms into the environment. The history also demonstrates that the U.S. Coordinated Framework for Biotechnology Regulation (1986) is based principally in political criteria, not solidly based in science as its proponents claimed. The power struggle among policy negotiators with incompatible belief systems resulted in a political correction of biotechnology. I also demonstrate that episodes in the rDNA controversy occur in repetitive and periodic patterns. During the 1980s, the first rDNA microbial pesticide, Ice-Minus, struggled through a policy gauntlet of federal agency approval processes, a Congressional hearing, and many legal actions before it was finally released into the environment. At the height of the controversy (1984-1986), the Reagan Administration would admit no new laws or regulations to slow the development of technologies or hinder American international competitiveness. At the same time, Jeremy Rifkin, a radical activist representing a green world view, used the controversy to agitate for social and economic reform. Meanwhile, a group of Congressional aides who called themselves the "Cloneheads" used the debate to fight for more public participation in the science policy-making process. Conflicting perspectives regarding biotechnology originated, not in level of understanding of the science involved, but in personal perspectives that were outwardly expressed as political group affiliations. The direction of federal biotechnology policy was influenced most successfully by politically best-positioned individuals (what I call a "hierarchy effect") who based decisions on how biotechnology harmonized with their pre-existing beliefs. The success of their actions also depended on timing. Historical events during the rDNA controversy followed the same periodic pattern--gestation, threshold, crisis/conflict, and quasi-quiescence--through two consecutive eras--the Containment Era (1970s) and the Release Era (1980s). These periods are modeled after Fletcher's stages through which ethical issues evolve (1990). However, an agricultural perspective on the debate reveals that such stages also occur in finer detail on repeating, overlapping, and multi-level scales. Knowledge of this periodicity may be useful in predicting features of future episodes of the rDNA controversy. / Ph. D.