This thesis challenges the assumption that states are rational unitary actors by examining how, in the United States, the personality traits of the president determine whether or not he will choose military intervention when the domestic and international conditions align to render it a possibility. These conditions are filtered through the lens of the president's own cognitive schema, which cannot be purely rational and, moreover, is likely to include a mélange of traits that converge to create a marked preference for action, reinforced and incentivized by the domestic political system. If Bill Clinton provides an example of the interventionist impulse among U.S. presidents in his actions in Bosnia, Barack Obama offers an exception through his restraint in Syria. Today, the Trump presidency raises questions about the likelihood of U.S. involvement in the enduring Syrian Civil War.

This paper examines and analyzes Hillary Clinton's Twitter account activity between July 1, 2016 and August 28, 2016 in an attempt to determine the perception of authenticity on social media and whether Hillary Clinton was effective in improving her image during the 2016 presidential election. This thesis questions whether Twitter is a reliable tool in determining authenticity.

During the 1970s, the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, or P-Funk, performed a unique type of funk music that impacted the lives and culture of generations of fans. Their music has been a vital force in the developments of popular music, redefining the limits of concept albums and performances, and opened the doors to funk rock, hip hop, and neo-soul. I address the ways in which P-Funk has been received, interpreted, and reconstructed by the diverse constituents of American popular culture from the 1960s to the present. Each chapter explores a discrete interpretive community that has granted meaning to the collective from perspectives of history, music, iconography, consumer culture, and popular entertainment media. The resulting study unifies these threads through their engagement with history and the evolution of P-Funk through time. Ultimately, this thesis seek to shed light on a group that has lacked thorough scholarly attention.

The purpose of this study is to illuminate the presence and rhetorical effect of anecdotes in President Clinton's major health care address. It is the health care debate that shows most clearly how Clinton tries to direct a multi-level campaign that attempts to identify his interests (passage of the Health Security Act) with the interests of Congress and the American people. The analysis of his address and remarks during the week of his Joint Session of Congress appearance will demonstrate how Clinton uses anecdotes as a rhetorical tool to address different audiences, and will argue that this use of anecdotes functions to heighten emotional appeal while promoting identification with his audience. Clinton relies on the pathos of anecdotes to pass a health care bill, which will be analyzed according to Kenneth Burke's discussion of political rhetoric. This study adopts a Burkeian perspective on political rhetoric as a means for investigating the problems Clinton faced in confronting the complex and divisive issue of health care. / Graduation date: 1994

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Cynthia Hoffner, committee chair; Mary Stuckey, Mchael Bruner, committee members. Electronic text (65 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Apr. 26, 2007; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 54-59).

The concept of an apologetic president has only recently emerged in the United States. All presidents have made mistakes, but only recently have Americans come to expect apologies from them. The development of an increasingly critical media has necessitated that future presidents hone the art of apologizing. This thesis extrapolates lessons in this skill from the apologies of Presidents Nixon and Clinton. Watergate and Lewinsky-gate were cover-up scandals that rocked the nation in the 1970s and '90s. Although the presidential misconduct in both cases were similar, the way each president opted to navigate his controversy differed dramatically. Both presidents initially tried out the tactic of denying all accusations but branched off after taking that step. A comparison of their approaches offers insight into the possible ways of seeking forgiveness from a scorned public. The nuances of delivering a successful apology are dictated by circumstantial, structural factors as well as the personality of the president, which explains why no two apologies are the same. Although the art of apologizing will continue to evolve over time, future presidents stand to learn a great deal from studying Nixon and Clinton. This thesis finds that even though Americans get a certain degree of satisfaction from exposing presidential wrongdoing and making life more than uncomfortable for a wayward executive, the legacies of Nixon and Clinton are proof that a smattering of mistakes cannot completely overshadow a tradition of accomplishments. No matter how vindictive Americans may appear to be in the thick of a scandal, in the long run, the United States is a forgiving nation.

This dissertation examined the presidential elections of 1992, 1996 and 2000 for the narrative tools used to persuade Latino voters. Using Walt Fisher's narrative theory, I evaluated the various parts of the American Dream myth, looking specifically at the characters and settings used in the candidate's narrative. Then, I evaluated the values in those narratives through the lens of the Plan of Delano, specifically looking for ways these candidates actually reinforced important Latino values. The new tellings of the American Dream myth valued specific characters- characters that had been blessed by the American Dream. Clinton's 1992 character had to work to gain success, but he was also blessed. George P. Bush (George W. Bush's nephew) was another character blessed by the American Dream. As a first-generation American, he represented the hope that brings many to America; the idea that their children could have opportunities the parents could not. The settings of the American Dream story were also important. These settings varied greatly-from the decrepit and desolate to the fanciful and idyllic-but they represented all the different places where the American Dream is possible. Hope, Arkansas is not a place where much hope seems to exist. But even a community as impoverished as Hope can be the birthplace of a President, because of the amazing ability of the Dream to permeate even the darkest corners of America. The barrios of the Southwest appear to be hopeless, but as Clinton's telling of the myth reminded Latinos, even people growing up in the barrios should have hope-because the American Dream can exist anywhere. These values, these characters, these settings have added to the rich rhetorical history of the American Dream myth. These presidential candidates expanded the places where that hope could reach, and the people who could be blessed by the Dream. All of this culminated in a story that Latinos could relate to, that they shared in and that rhetorically persuaded them to believe in these candidates.

This thesis explores the hermeneutic opportunities in the United Nations’ human rights documents which are used by states, like the United States, to rhetorically circumvent the responsibilities the documents place on U.N. member states. The way these opportunities are strategically used is examined through case studies of the Clinton administration attempts to evade involvement in the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides. News conferences, press briefings and speeches are used to do a rhetorical analysis of Clinton’s strategy in order to determine how that strategy was shaped by the constraints and opportunities of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2007. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 148-154).