This thesis explores the content of presidential communication to children, specifically the only three presidential speeches that have been designed for children. These three speeches are President Barack Obama's speech to children in 2009, George H.W. Bush's speech to children in 1991, and Ronald Reagan's speech to children in 1988. Through content analysis this thesis was designed to determine whether persuasive strategies were used in these messages to children, and if persuasive strategies were present, which ones were used. Through qualitative analysis conducting a focus group discussion with children exposed to one of the presidential speeches, this thesis also explored the speeches from children's perspectives. Political socialization theory is used as framework for developing the study, and three persuasive theories are used for analysis of the speeches. The findings provide insight into presidential communication to children and implications of future research in this area. Findings suggest that persuasive strategies are present and a variety of techniques are utilized in the speeches. The purpose and common topics of these speeches are also explored. Focus group findings support that children can identify persuasive strategies present in the speeches and provide insight into the knowledge children retain from exposure to the communication.

At the start of the George H.W. Bush administration, American involvement in El Salvador‘s civil war, one of the last Cold War battlegrounds, had disappeared from the foreign policy agenda. However, two events in November 1989 shattered the bipartisan consensus on US policy toward El Salvador: the failure of the FMLN‘s largest military offensive of the war and the murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter by the Salvadoran military, the FAES. Despite more than one billion dollars in US military assistance, the war had stalemated, promoting both sides to seek a negotiated political settlement mediated by the United Nations. The Jesuit murders demonstrated the failure of the policy of promoting respect for democracy and human rights and revived the debate in Congress over US aid to El Salvador. This thesis argues that the Bush administration sought to remove the burden of El Salvador from its foreign policy agenda by actively pushing for the investigation and prosecution of the Jesuit case and fully supporting the UN-mediated peace process. Using recently declassified government documents from the George Bush Presidential Library, this thesis will examine how the Bush administration fundamentally changed US policy toward El Salvador. Administration officials carried out an unprecedented campaign to pressure the FAES to investigate the Jesuit murders and bring the killers to justice while simultaneously attempting to prevent Congress from cutting American military assistance. The Bush administration changed the objective of its El Salvador policy from military victory over the guerrillas to a negotiated political settlement. The US facilitated the peace process by pressuring the Salvadoran government and the FMLN to negotiate in good faith and accept compromises. When both sides signed a comprehensive peace agreement on January 16, 1992, the burden of El Salvador was lifted.

In my earlier work, ‘First steps towards a rhetorical hermeneutics of literary interpretation’ (2006), I argued that academic reading takes the form of an argument between readers. Four serious weaknesses in that account are its elision of the distinction between reading and discourse on reading, its inattention to non-academic reading, its exclusive focus on ‘interpretation’ as if this constituted the whole of reading or of discourse on reading, and its failure to theorise the object of literary reading, ie. the work of literature. The current work aims to address all of these problems, together with those created by certain other approaches to literary reading, with the overall objective of clearing the ground for more empirical studies. It exemplifies its points with examples drawn primarily from non-academic public discourse on literature (newspapers, magazines, and the internet), though also from other sources (such as reading groups and undergraduate literature seminars). It takes a particular (though not an exclusive) interest in two specific instances of non-academic reception: the widespread reception of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses as an attack on Islam, and the minority reception of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy The Lord of the Rings as a narrative of homosexual desire. The first chapter of this dissertation critically surveys the fields of reception study and discourse analysis, and in particular the crossover between them. It finds more productive engagement with the textuality of response in media reception study than in literary reception study. It argues that the application of discourse analysis to reception data serves to problematise, rather than to facilitate, reception study, but it also emphasises the problematic nature of discourse analysis itself. Each of the three subsequent chapters considers a different complex of problems. The first is the literary work, and its relation to its producers and its consumers: Chapter 2 takes the form of a discourse upon the notions of ‘speech act’ and ‘authorial intention’ in relation to literature, carries out an analysis of early public responses to The Satanic Verses, and puts in a word for non-readers by way of a conclusion. The second is the private experience of reading, and its paradoxical status as an object of public representation: Chapter 3 analyses representations of private responses to The Lord of The Rings film trilogy, and concludes with the argument that, though these representations cannot be identical with private responses, they are cannot be extricated from them, either. The third is the impossibility of distinguishing rhetoric from cognition in the telling of stories about reading: Chapter 4 argues that, though anecdotal or autobiographical accounts of reading cannot be taken at face value, they can be taken both as attempts to persuade and as attempts to understand; it concludes with an analysis of a magazine article that tells a number of stories about reading The Satanic Verses – amongst other things. Each of these chapters focuses on non-academic reading as represented in written text, but broadens this focus through consideration of examples drawn from spoken discourse on reading (including in the liminal academic space of the undergraduate classroom). The last chapter mulls over the relationship between reading and discourse of reading, and hesitates over whether to wrap or tear this dissertation’s arguments up.

This dissertation examines how the major television networks, in conjunction with the Reagan administration, launched a lingering cloud of nuclear anxiety that helped to revive the Cold War during the 1980s. Placed within a larger political and cultural post-war context, this national preoccupation with a global show-down with the Soviet Union at times both hindered and bolstered Reagan’s image as the archetypal conservative, cowboy President that could free America from its liberal adolescent past now caustically referred to as “the sixties.” This stalwart image of Reagan, created and carefully managed by a number of highly-paid marketing executives, as one of the embodiment of peaceful deterrence, came under attack in the early 1980s when the “liberal” Nuclear Freeze movement showed signs of becoming politically threatening to the staunch conservative pledging to win the Cold War at any cost. And even if the nuclear freeze movement itself was not powerful enough to undergo the Herculean task of removing the President in 1984, the movement was compassionate enough to appeal to a mass audience, especially when framed in narrative form on network television. In the early 1980s, debates over the possibility of nuclear war and other pertinent Cold War related issues became much more democratized in their visibility on the network airwaves. However, the message disseminated from the networks was not placed in an educational framework, nor did these television productions clarify complicated nuclear issues such as nuclear winter theory and proliferation. I argue this renewed network attention on nuclear issues was not placed in an historical framework and likely confused American viewers because it routinely exposed audiences to both fact and fiction, undifferentiated at the level of the mass media.

Nell’aprile 1982, l’Argentina – un Paese alleato degli Stati Uniti attraverso il Patto di Rio – invase le isole Falkland, un Territorio d’Oltremare del Regno Unito, rivendicato da Buenos Aires sin dal XIX secolo. Margaret Thatcher, l’allora Primo Ministro britannico, rispose con vigore. Alla fine la Gran Bretagna – alleato NATO degli USA – riuscì a riconquistare le isole e a ristabilire lo status quo ante. Il conflitto va inquadrato nel framework della ‘seconda Guerra Fredda’. Il confronto tra gli Stati Uniti e l’Unione Sovietica fu particolarmente aspro nei primi anni Ottanta e la logica bipolare influenzò le dinamiche diplomatiche della guerra del 1982. Da un lato, l’Emisfero occidentale era al centro della rinnovata strategia americana anti-comunista e l’Argentina era il principale pilastro nel Cono Sud. Dall’altro lato, il rafforzamento della ‘speciale relazione’ anglo-americana costituiva la pietra angolare della grand strategy statunitense nel teatro europeo. Con questo sfondo, è naturale domandarsi quale ruolo Washington scelse di giocare nella guerra delle Falkland tra due dei suoi alleati. A causa di interessi divergenti, la ‘relazione speciale’ non fu infatti del tutto speciale. / In April 1982, Argentina – a country allied with the United States through the Rio Pact – suddenly invaded the Falkland Islands, a long-time Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom, disputed by Buenos Aires since the XIXth century. Margaret Thatcher, the then British Prime Minister, vigorously responded and finally Britain – a US NATO ally – was able to regain the Islands and re-establish the status quo ante. The conflict needs to be contextualized in the ‘second Cold War’ framework. The struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union was particularly tough in the first years of the 1980s and the bipolar logic strongly influenced the diplomatic course of the 1982 war. On the one hand, the Western hemisphere was at the core of the renewed anti-communist US strategy and Argentina was the main pillar in the Southern Cone. On the other hand, the strengthening of the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ was the European cornerstone of the US grand strategy. Against this background, what kind of role the US chose to play in the Falklands war between two of their allies instinctively arises as the main question. Affected by diverging interests, the ‘special relationship’ was not indeed entirely special.

民主原則之規範性困境，今日已於所有民主國家的政治生活中，展現為層出不窮的民主危機。尤其因為民粹威權主義於成熟民主國家的大行其道，民主危機的解決已成為當代民主迫在眉睫的問題。為求取釜底抽薪的解決之道，則必須從理論層面出發，對民主之概念進行徹底的反省。然而，法學本身顯然難以克服此一困境，而必須將道德哲學與政治哲學的理論資源與方法納入視野之內，以便從規範性證立民主的基本內涵開始，循序漸進地獲致其反映於制度層面應有的具體內容。 　　過往的民主理論證立民主之所以具有無法克服的困難，是因為其終須依賴當代多元社會下有爭議的道德信念。對此，本文以Jürgen Habermas的「論辯倫理學」為基礎，從而對民主的基本精神提出無爭議的規範性證立。透過論辯倫理學的進一步推演，Habermas亦導出「法律論辯理論」，以說明法律作為施展強制力的工具是如何被證立的。藉由結合論辯倫理學與法律論辯理論，便能將民主強制付諸於日常生活的實踐之中，據此呈現出民主作為憲法原則的應有樣貌。植基於此一的路徑，本文拓展了Habermas的理念，從而證立並闡發民主的核心精神。 　　此一依循論辯倫理學及法律論辯理論所獲致的民主原則內容，即為審議民主理論。依據前述的理論奠基，本文認為審議民主理論蘊含的內容可歸結為「論辯之基本權」以及「政治平等諸規則」兩大理念，並能透過基進民主理論的批判以深化對後者的理解，從而闡發審議民主理論的基進意涵。「基進審議民主」明確而豐富的內容不僅宣告著民主原則規範性困境之解決，也同時於實踐上提出了化解民主危機的制度建議。 / In the political life of all democracies, the normative dilemma of principle of democracy has appeared as endless crises of democracy. Accrodingly, to solve the crisis of democracy thus becomes an urgent issue for the contemporary democracy. As populist authoritarianism propagated on a upsetting scale around developed democracies, finding a resolution also grows more significant. To solve this problems once and for all, we must proceed forward from a theoretical perspective that indicate a profound reflection on the concept of democracy. Because jurisprudence becomes manifest in lack of proper paths to overcome this dilemma by itself, incorporating the theoretical resources and methods of ethics and political philosophy into the field of vision may be imperative and necessary. With the foundation that justifies fundamental connotations of democracy in a normative approch, we will obtain the specific contents that democracy reflects at the institutional level progressively. 　　Previous works on democratic theory are so difficult to justify democracy per se because their justifications depending on controversial moral beliefs in contemporary plural society drift into failure. In this regard, Jürgen Habermas advanced the “Discourse Ethics” which suggests a non-controversial normative justification of democratic essences as the most promising theory at present. Through employing Discourse Ethics, Habermas deduced “Discourse Theory of Law” to explain how to justify law as a compulsory instrument. In this manner, democracy can be forced into daily life, via combining Discourse Ethics and Discourse Theory of Law, to draw a ideal form as a a constitutional principle. Through the illustration of Habermas's doctrine, this thesis tries to broaden the ways to understand and describe the democracy. 　　“Deliberative Democracy” is the very idea derived from Discourse Ethics and Discourse Theory of Law. Based on the foundations of the above, this thesis suggests that the contents of Deliberative Democracy can be attributed to the two basic concepts including “fundamental rights of discourse” and “rules of political equality”, which, through criticisms of radical democracy, shall be further deepen the understanding of the latter to elucidate what radical meanings do Deliberative Democracy have. With specific and profuse contents, radical deliberative democracy not only invents a solution to the normative dilemma of principle of democracy, but puts forward institutional proposals to resolving crises of democracy in practice simultaneously.

No description available.

No description available.

Over the last sixty years, voting patterns in the United States have changed dramatically, and this is especially true in the state of Florida. Though there is some literature in the field of political science that outlines the voting and election history of Florida and identifies some trends, this literature is extremely limited and is not comprehensive of the data that is available up to the present day. This study seeks to find Florida’s voting patterns and to explain how they can be understood by both the casual observer and the political scientist. To do so, unique methodology was applied that used the "relative margin" of both a county and a region in a particular election to give the Democratic nominee’s performance context both in the election in question and in history, by comparing the actual margin of victory or defeat of the Democratic nominee to the statewide margin of victory or defeat. This was an illuminating process that ultimately revealed some truths about the election history of Florida: the counties and regions most likely to vote for Democratic nominees in the 1950s and early 1960 are now among the least likely to do so, and the counties and regions most likely to vote for Republican nominees in the 1950s and early 1960s are now considered to be "swing" or "tossup" areas that are regularly and alternatively won by Democratic and Republican nominees. Additionally, the pattern of each region in how it voted in presidential elections was compared to forty seven other states in the country to provide further context as to how the election patterns can be understood in context.

This dissertation examines the political, social, and economic responses to the end of the Bretton Woods system from 1971-1988 in the United States. It offers a “pre-history” of globalization which focuses on a period when international economic entanglement became a question of serious political debate within the U.S., but before “globalization” became common parlance. Contemporaries referred to the world after Bretton Woods as newly characterized by “interdependence,” a concept which highlighted vulnerability to external economic forces and declining national autonomy. This dissertation argues that far from enthusiastically embracing market globalization in this period, U.S. policymakers worked to supervise and manage global integration, and insulate workers, consumers, businesses, and themselves from the full force of the world economy. Restoring domestic social conflict to the center of our understanding of international economic policy, it investigates how labor unions and federations like the UAW and the AFL-CIO, business lobbying organizations like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce, and officials in the Treasury, Congress, and the Federal Reserve conflicted over their response to growing economic entanglement deep into the 1980s. It excavates a history of protectionism, planning, subsidies, industrial policy, currency politics, and other forms of state intervention—often driven by elites in the industrial Midwest and Northeast. The result of these collisions was an ambivalent and fragmented national approach to global integration which persisted until more recently than typically assumed. Rather than being driven by a coherent ideological vision for American power, or a clear-cut embrace of neoliberal theory, foreign economic policy was propelled forward by a much more contingent, ad-hoc, and conflictual process across this period. When globalization took on truly historical force in the 1990s, it was not because social conflicts over interdependence had been resolved, but because a more reluctant and resistant approach to global integration had lost its political and institutional foothold.