Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-53).

"In the eye of the beholder- A didactic study of Swedish teachers and textbooks in history’s reasoning about nine eleven and its aftermath" by Emmy Johansson and Emma Svanström aims to show which picture both teachers and textbooks on elementary school and upper secondary school want to mediate on the subject. The study also strives to compare the teachers view with the textbooks. To achieve these goals the study uses materials from eight interviews and fifteen textbooks. The methods are a combination of interviews and textual analysis inspired by the scientist Elizabeth D. Herman. Comparison was also included in order to be able to compare teachers and textbooks. Content analysis and sentence centralization was used in order to analyze the materials. Finally the study used a combination of theoretical concepts which included history didactics, historically consciousness and facts about the production of textbooks. The results show that although there is a great variation in how teachers as well as textbooks reason about the subject there are also many similar thoughts and presentations. This is the case for as well teachers as textbooks and the comparison between them. The study also reveal that although teachers are skeptical about the textbooks they are both needed to form a good education. But such a combination would still leave some effects unmentioned to the students.

In this essay I shall analyze Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address, January, 2009 from the perspective of various linguistic techniques. More specifically, I shall propose and focus on the idea that the composition of the speech has an aim to create a unity of the speaker and the audience in order to deliver the message. Moreover, the speaker maintains the atmosphere of unity throughout the speech, so that the speech produces an effect when the audience becomes a co-author of it. My thesis will also discuss some aspects of persuasive strategies employed in the speech from those dating back as long as Ancient Greece to temporal discourses. The aim is to analyze how the use of a number of linguistic approaches creates a speech which senses an agreement and co-operation between the orator and the audience.

The diploma thesis "Some Features of Persuasive Language in Selected Presidential Campaign Speeches of Two Candidates" aims to investigate how the rhetorical device of conceptual metaphor is employed in the election campaign speeches of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney addressed mainly to the Hispanic voters to develop the myth of the American Dream. The political speeches were analyzed under the theoretical framework of the critical metaphor analysis and critical discourse analysis. Besides the analysis of the metaphorical concepts that support the myth creation, other rhetorical devices were examined in the selected corpus of the both speeches for their persuasive function.

This thesis called "The United States and the strategic triangle of China-India-Pakistan" examines how the states balance mutual threats. It also focuses on the aspect of U.S.-Pakistani relationship which is a key factor for the further development of the relations in the region. Strategic triangle relations can be defined by Sino-Pakistani alliance, Sino-Indian differences and Indian-Pakistani rivalry. The work is based on a realist concept of the balance of power theory with further focus on the Stephen M. Walt's concept of balance of threat. Based on the theoretical framework, the main threats of the triangle states and the ways they balance these threats are analysed. The growing economic and military power of China and India has resulted in intense balancing, with China using an alliance with Pakistan and strengthening its economic strategies, and with India strengthening the ties with the U.S. and other countries in the region. This ignites a significant security dilemma between China and India, further leading to a potential conflict. The paper further argues that the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan is key for maintaining regional balance. Therefore, to maintain the strong ties with Pakistan, a setting of long-term U.S. strategy in Pakistan is crucial for increasing the...

Ce travail s’appuie sur les études culturelles et historiques, la géopolitique, la narratologie, et la sémiologie de l’image pour étudier la guerre contre le terrorisme et ses représentations dans les séries télévisées américaines "24 heures chrono" et "Homeland". Produites à dix ans d’intervalle, ces deux fictions majeures de l’après-11 Septembre ont souvent été mises en opposition du fait de leur idéologie supposée, dans la lignée de la présidence républicaine de George W. Bush pour la première, de la présidence démocrate de Barack Obama pour la seconde. Cependant, l’on trouve de nombreuses ressemblances qui tendent non seulement à rapprocher "24" et "Homeland", mais également les présidences Bush et Obama. Notre travail consistera ainsi à mettre au jour l’ambivalence politique des deux programmes afin de s’interroger plus généralement sur les ruptures et les continuités de cette guerre mondiale contre le terrorisme que les États-Unis mènent depuis bientôt deux décennies. / This work uses cultural and historical studies, geopolitics, narratology, and visual semiotics to analyse the representations of the War on Terror in "24" and "Homeland", two emblematic post-9/11 American television series. These shows, which started airing almost a decade apart, have often been opposed to each other because of their presumed ideologies. Both dealing with the War on Terror, "24" has been said to reflect the conservatism of the Bush years, while "Homeland" would correspond to Obama’s liberal presidency. However, upon closer examination, many similarities can be found – which would not only bridge "24" and "Homeland", but also George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s presidencies. This work thus aims to deconstruct the preconceptions surrounding the two series by exploring their political ambivalence in order to question the ruptures and continuities in the global War on Terror which the United States has been conducting for almost twenty years now.

Master thesis deals with the concept of "rogue states" and strategies of the United States that are used towards rogue states. Concretely, attention is focused on two such labeled countries - Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Strategies used by the United States are further observed during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama and with regard to two typical characteristics of rogue states - effort to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the support of terrorism. Despite expectations, it appears that strategies used by the United States differ significantly and they are often influenced by historical experiences and strategic interests. Bush's and Obama's foreign policies were significantly different on the rhetorical level. However, as shown in the thesis there can be found certain continuities between the strategies towards rogue states.

ObamaCare 2010: Political Aspects of U.S. Health-care Reform Katarína Dujčíková Abstract The enactment of the comprehensive health-care reform in March 2010 is one of major political achievements of the administration of the 44th president of the United States of America, a Democrat Barack Obama and the 111th Congress with the majority of Democrats in both chambers. Democratic politicians reacted to the need to answer three major problems of American health care system; rising cost, average quality and limited access to standard health care services for million Americans. The historical passage of health-care reform enacted despite unified opposition by Republicans was possible due to the rare combination of favorable conditions, or so-called window of opportunity and legislative tactic, which had to be adopted in order to diffuse opposition and secure enough votes from undecided congressmen. Compromises that had to be made necessarily altered an initial reform proposal. This diploma thesis has focused on two major aims. First, it examines in detail the legislative process of health-care reform, actions of its major players (public, congressional parties, president, and interest groups) as well as its result (the reform bills), which compares to the initial reform proposals of President Obama. The findings...

The master thesis called Security of the Russian Federation: (de)securitization of the U.S. by Russian representatives deals with the security of Russia from the top representatives points of view. The analyzed time is determined by the presidential term of Dmitry Medvedev (2008 - April 2012). The aim of the thesis is to find out, why the U.S. was (de)securitized during the Medvedev's presidential term and confirm or disprove the predefined hypothesis. President, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs create the foreign politics of Russian federation. Their speeches and interviews are the main source of the data. The basic security terms and the theories (de)securitization are discussed in the first part of the thesis. The Russian point of view of security is defined in the following part. There are analyzed oficial documents focusing on definition of the national security, foreign policy and military field. There are also discussed the Russian media discourse since 90s of the 20 century and Russian- American relations. The last empirical part analyzes the interviews and speeches of the president Medvedev, of the prime minister Putin and of the minister of foreign affairs Lavrov in terms of their attitudes to the U.S.

Cette thèse inscrite dans la tradition intellectuelle de l’American Political Development analyse les liens dialectiques entre l’entrepreneuriat des présidents des États-Unis sur la question de l’assurance maladie, l’essor du système de santé américain contemporain et son produit le plus récent, le Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010). Il s’agit d’analyser les influences réciproques entre un exécutif qui subit de très fortes contraintes institutionnelles dans ce champ précis des politiques publiques et un système de santé dont les fondements et les contours sont en perpétuelle mutation. Les réformes de santé, de par leur nature transversale et polémique, leur complexité mais aussi leur poids dans l'économie américaine, agissent directement sur les équilibres de la gouvernance publique. Elles doivent être considérées comme un laboratoire et un accélérateur d’innovations pour la présidence, dans un système politique où sa sphère d’action est limitée, tant par les freins et des contre-pouvoirs que par l’influence d’autres entrepreneurs politiques dotés d’une légitimité d’action égale voir supérieure à se saisir de la question épineuse de la santé. L’adoption du PPACA, sa promulgation par un président démocrate après un siècle de rendez-vous manqués avec les réformes ambitieuses de l’assurance maladie, ainsi que sa mise en œuvre compliquée, offrent un cas d’étude de premier plan sur les évolutions de l'exécutif étasunien et sur la normalisation d’un entrepreneuriat présidentiel hétérodoxe. / This dissertation which falls within the intellectual tradition of American Political Development explores the dialectical links between the entrepreneurship of US presidents on health care reform, the development of the American health care system and its latest product, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which was signed into law in 2010. This work analyses the mutual forces of influence at work between a deeply constrained executive in this particular field of public policy and a health care system whose foundations and contours are in constant mutation. Given its controversial nature, its complexity and its weight in the US economy, health care reform directly affects the dynamics of public governance. Health care reform must therefore be considered as a laboratory and an accelerator of innovations for the presidency, in a political system in which its sphere of action is limited, as much by checks and balances as by the influence of other entrepreneurs who enjoy equivalent if not greater legitimacy than the executive branch to take action on the thorny issue of health care. The passage of the PPACA, the fact that it was signed into law by a democratic president after a century of failed attempts at ambitious reform as well as its arduous implementation, are a picture perfect case study on the evolutions of the presidential institution and on the routinization of heterodox presidential entrepreneurship.