This thesis examines US protectionism in the 1980s from Canadian and American perspectives, and its role in Canada’s pursuit of the historic 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. It analyzes the perceived “threat” of protectionism and evaluates the agreement’s provisions against Canada’s goal of securing access to the US market. It contends that US protectionism was crucial in the Mulroney government’s decision to negotiate a bilateral agreement and was a contentious issue for the agreement’s critics. US sources, unexamined in existing historiography, confirm the increased threat of American protectionism, but emphasize a distinction between the threat and implementation of protectionist trade law. Although the agreement did not shield Canada from US trade remedies, Canada gained important presence in the trade dispute process. These conclusions are drawn from Canadian and American media and government documents, 1980s academic and think-tank commentary, legal documents, the memoirs and diaries of major players, and select archival sources.

L’examen des conceptions exposées par certains représentants politiques et institutionnels conservateurs influents dans le Colorado suite aux élections de mi-mandat en 2006 révèle l’existence d’une rhétorique fondée sur la juxtaposition de deux thèmes fondateurs : les vertus de l’économie de marché et les enseignements de la tradition, auxquels s’ajoute l’adhésion à une politique de défense vigoureuse. En réalité, cette triple thématique constitue l’essence même du discours façonné par William F. Buckley Jr. et Frank S. Meyer dans le magazine National Review à partir de 1955. Buckley et Meyer procédèrent, en effet, au renouvellement de la philosophie conservatrice par la fusion du libéralisme classique et du traditionalisme tels que ces deux courants de pensée apparurent isolément aux Etats-Unis à la fin de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale en réaction au communisme et au New Deal.L’existence d’un discours fusionniste dans le Colorado soulève des interrogations sur la validité de deux théories connexes qui animent méthodologiquement l’interprétation de l’évolution du conservatisme américain. La première théorie voit dans le message conservateur fusionniste des incohérences philosophiques et programmatiques qui annoncent l’atomisation des composantes théoriques de ce message et, consécutivement, aussi bien la disparition du conservatisme sous sa forme actuelle que la recomposition, à terme, des appartenances partisanes aux Etats-Unis. La deuxième théorie soutient que ces incompatibilités et ces risques de fracture se manifestent géographiquement à travers une opposition politico-culturelle entre le conservatisme de l’Ouest non-côtier, auquel l’analyse prête des caractéristiques individualistes, et celui du Sud, décrit comme fidèle à des valeurs traditionnelles et religieuses perçues comme une entrave aux aspirations individualistes.L’objectif de cette étude est de vérifier l’hypothèse de cette dichotomie philosophique et régionale et porte sur l’Arizona et le Colorado, les deux Etats les plus représentatifs de l’Ouest non-côtier. / Comments made by some of Colorado’s most influential conservative leaders in the wake of the 2006 mid-term elections reveal the extent to which the type of conservatism that they advocate rests on three basic principles: free enterprise, tradition, and strong national defense. It turns out that this brand of conservatism coincides with the political philosophy which William F. Buckley Jr. and Frank S. Meyer sought to formulate in National Review starting in 1955 when the magazine was first published. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Buckley and Meyer actually set out to modernize intellectual conservatism by fusing together into a coherent doctrine the principles of classical liberalism and traditionalism that separately emerged in the United States at the end of World War Two in reaction to international communism and the New Deal. The manifestation of “fusionist” conservatism in Colorado in 2006 raises serious questions about the validity of two interrelated theories which methodologically steer studies of modern conservatism in the United States. The first theory holds that American conservatism in its current expression is philosophically incoherent and will ultimately disintegrate paving the way for a major partisan realignment. The second theory contends that such internal tensions are reflected in sectional cultural and political discrepancies between the Interior West, typically described as libertarian, and the South, generally seen as solidly clinging to traditional and religious values which are purportedly at odds with more individualistic aspirations. The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis of philosophical and sectional strains within American conservatism and focuses on Arizona and Colorado, two of the fastest-growing states in the Interior West since the end of World War Two.

The Catalina Triangle is a work of historical fiction focusing on the final weekend in the life of the actress Natalie Wood with flashbacks highlighting her rise to fame and references to Reagan-era America as well as the history of Catalina Island.

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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.

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.

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.