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This study applies the metaphor of two-level games to generate explanations of how and why President Reagan chose to appoint Edward J. Perkins ambassador to South Africa. It explored the relationship between national and international factors that may have influenced Reagan's decision, as well as his policy preferences, beliefs and values. International factors included U.S.-South Africa relations, alliances, international organizations, and transnational movements for human rights and racial equality. Among the domestic factors were the dynamics between the executive and legislative branches of government, interest groups, and activism. National and international politics and policies overlapped in four areas' "strategic interests, race, morality, and national values. Analysis of the evidence suggests that while international events were an important part of the context of the decision, domestic politics and the President's own views had the most influence on the decision. The Perkins appointment exemplified how a personnel selection might reaffirm national reconciliation of opposing views on race, ethnicity, democratic values and national interests. / Ph. D.

<p>This dissertation addresses one of the most vexing issues in American foreign policy: Under what circumstances should the United States use military force in pursuit of national interests? Despite not having a policy upon entering office or articulating one throughout its first term, the Reagan administration used military force numerous times. Two-weeks following Reagan's landslide reelection victory, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger articulated six tests for when and how to use military force, which surprisingly seemed to call for restraint. Through the examination of three case studies, the Reagan administration's decisions are found to have been influenced by the assimilation of lessons from Vietnam, the reading of public pulse, the desire to placate Congress, and the need to protect the nation's strategic interests. All these factors, ultimately codified by Weinberger, were considered by the leaders in the Reagan administration as they tried to expand the military's ability to help the U.S. meet an increasingly wider range of threats. Thus this dissertation will show that, contrary to what one finds in contemporary scholarship, the Weinberger doctrine was intended as a policy to legitimize the use of military force as a tool of statecraft, rather than an endorsement to reserve force as a last resort after other instruments of power have failed.</p> / Dissertation

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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.

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