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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In this study, Janis Edwards and Carol Winkler’s method, based on Michael McGee’s ideograph, is applied to non-discursive forms in order to understand the extent to which these images can be understood as a representative form functioning ideographically. Artifacts for analysis include the 2008 Shepard Fairey Obama “PROGRESS” and “HOPE” images, related campaign graphics, and parodies, political and non-political, humorous and serious. Literature on visual rhetoric, the ideograph, and extensions of McGee’s ideograph to visual forms was reviewed. When the method was applied to the artifacts, the Obama “HOPE” image was found to be an example of a representative form. Additionally, the representative form was demonstrated to function ideographically in the parodied examples analyzed in this thesis. Opportunities for further study on the visual ideograph and additional artifacts were proposed.

La présente étude examine comment les organisations de lutte pour les droits civiques que sont la Rainbow Push Coalition, la NAACP et la National Urban League ont contribué à l’élection du 44e président des États-Unis, Barack Obama. Elle établit dans un premier temps comment la participation du Révérend Jesse Jackson aux élections de 1984 et 1988 a contribué à l’émergence du processus démocratique à l’origine de l’élection de Barack Obama, premier président américain issu de la communauté africaine américaine. Dans un second temps, elle met en évidence comment l’action transformative du mouvement des droits civiques ayant conduit à la promulgation du Voting Rights Act de 1965 par le président Lyndon B. Johnson, sous l’impulsion du Dr Martin Luther King, mais aussi de Roy Wilkins et Whitney Young contribua à l’élection de Barack Obama en 2008. En analysant la participation de Jesse Jackson aux élections présidentielles américaines, notre objectif est de montrer comment il est parvenu à faire changer les règles de nomination des candidats issus des minorités au sein du parti démocrate. Elle a permis de montrer comment Obama en fut le bénéficiaire en devenant d’abord le nominé du parti démocrate, puis le président des États-Unis. D’où notre analyse du processus électoral de 2008. L’étude fait ainsi un tour d’horizon des désaccords qui ont surgi lors de l’élection présidentielle de 2008, entre Hillary Clinton et Barack Obama d’une part, puis entre ce dernier et John McCain d’autre part. Elle examine, par ailleurs, dans une perspective sociologique, les conflits qui se sont succédés au sein de la communauté africaine américaine, notamment entre certains dirigeants africains américains et Obama avant et pendant l’élection présidentielle de 2008, relatifs aux valeurs familiales, à l’incident racial des “Six de Jena” ou encore à la participation de Barack Obama à l’élection présidentielle. La question relative à la notion d’une Amérique post-raciale qui se présenta suite à l’élection d’Obama sera également abordée. Elle démontre comment son élection n’a malheureusement pas pu changer les mentalités des Américains au sujet de la question raciale de manière radicale et combien le racisme demeure une question fondamentale, majeure aux États-Unis au 21e siècle. Enfin, l’étude examine la collaboration post-électorale entre les organisations de lutte pour les droits civiques et l’administration Obama. / This dissertation discusses how Black Civil Rights Organizations such as the NAACP, the National Urban League and the Rainbow Push Coalition paved the way for the election of the 44th US President, Barack Obama. It specifically establishes a direct link connecting the 1965 Voting Rights Act victory won under the leadership of Dr Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young along with the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential bids, showing from a historical approach how the Civil Rights Movement contributed to the election of the first African-American US President. By examining Reverend Jesse Jackson’s two presidential bids, this dissertation aims at demonstrating how he made it easier and more accessible for Barack Obama to become the Democratic Party nominee ultimately elected to the US Presidency. The dissertation further examines the electoral process through which Obama ascended to the Land’s Highest Office. In that regard, it revisits crucial hostilities that occurred during the 2008 presidential election within the Democratic Party between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. By the same token, it looks back on upheavals that broke out between Obama and Senator John McCain during the general election. The dissertation discusses from a sociological viewpoint disputes over leadership within the black community among African-American leaders and Barack Obama prior to, and during the 2008 presidential election. These clashes were notably related to family values, Obama’s 2008 presidential bid, and the Jena Six racial incident. This dissertation, further, addresses issues of America being a post-racial nation pointing out how the election of the first African-American President failed in fundamentally shifting Americans’ view on race relations and how racism is still a relevant issue in twenty-first century America while examining from another standpoint the relationship between the Obama Administration and the aforementioned Black Civil Rights Organizations

Thesis (MA (Political Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The United States of America (USA) has a new president in the White House - a president whose rhetoric appears to distance himself from the policies of the previous administration. This also appears to hold true for his approach with regard to nuclear nonproliferation. The overarching research aim of this study is to explore whether the Obama administration’s policy with regard to nuclear non-proliferation will differ significantly from that of the Bush administration. The broader subject of nuclear non-proliferation will be subdivided into three themes, namely: disarmament, proliferation by non-nuclear states and nuclear terrorism. In order to sketch the international context within which the USA’s policy must be viewed, an overview of the nuclear non-proliferation regime is provided. This will be followed by an exploration of disarmament, proliferation by nonnuclear states (with Iran and North Korea as case studies) and nuclear terrorism. In each case, a comparison between the Bush administration and the Obama administration’s policies will be done. Finally, an analysis will be done of the main similarities and differences between the two administrations’ approaches, with a focus on the use of hard, soft and smart power. The study concludes that the primary difference between the Bush and Obama administration’s approaches is that Bush pursued only one policy option (hard power) at a time, while Obama intends to use many different policy options (smart power) at the same time, with a focus on increasing the use of soft power. This sort of pragmatism may just be what the USA needs right now in order to address the problem of nuclear proliferation. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die Verenigte State van Amerika (VSA) het ‘n nuwe president in die Withuis – ‘n president wie se uitsprake hom van die beleide van die vorige administrasie blyk te distansieer. Dit wil ook voorkom asof dit van toepassing is op sy benadering tot kernwapen versperring. Die oorhoofse navorsingsdoelwit van hierdie studie is om te ondersoek of die Obama administrasie se beleid ten opsigte van kernwapen versperring aansienlik van die van die Bush administrasie gaan verskil. Die breër onderwerp van kernwapen versperring kan in drie temas opgedeel word, naamlik: ontwapening, proliferasie deur nie-kernwapenstate, en kernwapen terrorisme. Ten einde die internasionale konteks te skets waarin die VSA se beleid moet geskied, begin die studie met ‘n oorsig van die kernwapen versperring regime. Dit word gevolg deur ‘n ondersoek van onderskeidelik ontwapening, proliferasie deur nie-kernwapenstate (met Iran en Noord-Korea as gevallestudies) en kernwapen terrorisme. By elkeen van die drie temas word ‘n vergelyking tussen die Bush administrasie en die Obama adminstrasie se beleide getref. Laastens word ‘n analise van die hoof verskille en ooreenkomste tussen die twee administrasies se benaderings onderneem, met die klem op die gebruik van harde, sagte en slim mag. Die bevinding van die studie is dat die hoof verskille tussen die Bush en Obama administrasies se benaderings behels dat Bush slegs een beleidsopsie (harde mag) op ‘n slag nagevolg het, terwyl Obama beoog om terselfdertyd van verskillende beleidsopsies (slim mag) gebruik te maak, met veral ‘n fokus op ‘n toename in die gebruik van sagte mag. Die soort pragmatisme mag dalk net wees wat die VSA tans nodig het om die probleem van kernwapen proliferasie aan te spreek.

Taking as its starting point Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s theses on liberalism and war, and Dillon and Reid’s extensive engagement thereof, this thesis offers a critical conceptualization of drones and drone warfare. I argue that deployment of drones specifically over and against bodies and communities in conflict zones in and between Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and until recently, Libya, is the material practice of a legal and political doctrine and precedent that has been established and policed most prominently by the United States and its military and intelligence apparatuses since the end of the Cold War. This novel precedent, however - due to its necessarily mutually constitutive relationship with a perceived danger said to be emerging from specific spaces, bodies, and communities in the decolonized and still-colonized worlds - locates its ontological and thus political genealogy in the anthropological knowledge that legally justified the (in)humanity of peoples and communities in these spaces during the era of high imperialism that lasted roughly from the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. I theorize this as a mode of political, tragic nihilism through a reading of some key theories of Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, and Nietzsche and specifically, their import to the field of critical security and international relations theory. I demonstrate that the semiotic image of the drone is a highly pertinent point of departure through which we can understand these political stakes of strategic discourses enunciating the imperatives of both the Revolution in Military Affairs as well as recent global counterinsurgency/counterterrorism operations, specifically as they relate to claims about what it is drones are said to productively offer such militaristic projects. Ultimately, I argue that it is through the semiotic image of the drone as a clean, precise tactic that furthers the strategic goals of counterterrorism to target specific bodies that we can begin to politically theorize a particularly malignant political nihilism symptomatic of contemporary liberal societies. However, I also suggest that it is through Nietzsche’s politics of nihilism that we can begin to think about radical critical interventions that resist such a dangerous mode of politics. / Graduate

This thesis examines the foreign policy of the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. A significant theme of Barack Obama's candidacy for presidency was "change"; more specifically change in policy from previous administration. Therefore, the thesis looks at the changes brought about by President Obama once he was elected. First, we look at foreign policy of the United States under President George W. Bush, then we look at foreign policy-related assertions of Barack Obama during his candidacy, and lastly we look at the actual policies of the new administration, with particular focus on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drones and extrajudicial killing, Guantanamo detention facility and extraordinary rendition, and NSA surveillance.

Tato diplomová práce, ​Byla, nebyla jedna firma, a ta se jmenovala Patagonie​, se zabývá případovou studií outdorové značky Patagonia a jejích aktivistických transmediálních obsahových projektů, s důrazem na nejaktuálnější kampaň značky: ​Zachraňte Bears Ears​. Park Bears Ears je obdobou české chráněné krajinné oblasti, jejíž status ale současný americký prezident Donald Trump nedávno neautorizovaně sebral. Zatímco se firma zabývá výrobou a prodejem kvalitního outdoorového oblečení, tak se Patagonie ve stejnou dobu také aktivně angažuje do veřejného dění. Firma informuje své zákazníky zejména o stavu životního prostředí prostřednictvím svćyh multimediálních poutavých příběhů nesoucí prvky žurnalistiky. Patagonie usiluje o podněcování veřejnosti a ostatních firem zapojovat se do občanské společnosti, změnit spotřební chování nejen zákazníků, ale i výrobců, s konec̆ným cílem udržitelné ochrany této křehké planety, kterou my všichni obýváme. Patagonie potvrzuje své altruistické odhodlání prostřednictvím svého oficiálního firemního hesla: "Jsme v businessu, abychom zachránili planetu."

Over the course of the last few years, a new movement has taken the American political system by storm, the Tea Party. The movement has not only captivated our media but also the minds of ordinary Americans and political elites. According to popular consensus and academic opinion, the Tea Party is comprised of a group of conservative-leaning Republicans who want a smaller government and a lesser tax burden. This is what we think of the Tea Party, but is it true? It is perceived that Tea Party members differ significantly from their Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives, but do they? Do they truly represent the Tea Party philosophy and agenda? By creating an original data set on the Republican members of the United States House of Representatives, and examining variables such as the political lean, economic and employment make-up of a member's district, their endorsements and incumbency, as well as high priority legislative votes from the 112th Congress, I will be able to investigate the characteristics and tendencies of Tea Party Caucus members. Once one looks at the 242 member House Republican Caucus and further examines the sixty members of the Tea Party Caucus, the data shows that Tea Party Caucus members largely originate from safe Republican districts and have served in previous congressional terms. Analysis shows that Tea Party Caucus members do vary significantly from their House Republican colleagues when examining their districts, but do not vary as considerably when examining their voting patterns.

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.