Essay in Political Science, C-level, by Camila Alvarez Cea, spring semester 2010.   Tutor: Alf Sundin “Reality or a Political Mirage? – A Study of the Swedish Press Views on the Health Insurance Reform in the USA”   The purpose of this essay is partly to examine whether the picture that Swedish press presents of the health insurance reform in the US, which is part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Act bill, will be of crucial importance to the possibilities that the American population has to receive health insurance. The main research question is accordingly: “Does the picture that Swedish press presents of the health insurance reform in the USA, seem like something that will be of radical importance to the possibilities of the population to receive healthcare?” The purpose is also to examine in which model (demand or market) the opinions of the Swedish press fits. This purpose will be answered by using three specific questions asking whether their opinions differ when it comes to three criterions: organization, financing/resources and delivery systems. These criterions come from a model from Milton I. Roemer’s book “National health systems of the world,” which also is the theoretical foundation of this essay.   The methodological approach of this essay is a qualitative text analysis along with an analysis chart, where the three criterions have been examined from the reporting of the four Swedish newspapers chosen for this essay. The conclusions that have been reached from the analysis chart are that the opinions differ greatly within Swedish press, and that the picture that Swedish press presents of the health insurance reform is that it will become easier for the American population to receive health care.

中東地處歐亞非交界，是地緣戰略不可忽略的地方，亦是全球的能源生產重地，世界強權皆欲在此佔有一席之地，其中伊拉克含括兩河流域，為中東地區中心位置，石油儲量全球第二，戰略地點更顯重要，但宗教派系紛爭及強權覬覦的影響，伊拉克經常呈現紛亂狀態。 911事件後，美國將伊拉克列為邪惡軸心國家之一，認定其與恐怖組織掛勾，危害國際社會，決定再次出兵撻伐，並計劃以「美式民主」將伊拉克改造成中東的民主表率，期能在該地區推動民主風潮，但事實與結果卻是美國深陷伊拉克戰爭泥沼，為此付出極大代價，並被國際社會批判。 美國對伊拉克發動戰爭共經歷小布希總統及歐巴馬總統共3個任期，兩人政黨背景不同，執政理念存在差異，執政期間亦經歷各種國內外不同事件之影響，繼而產生不同的伊拉克政策；分析比較兩位總統在對伊拉克戰爭期間的做法，有助探討美國在不同政黨及總統外交政策的延續情況。 經過探討小布希總統與歐巴馬總統採取的伊拉克政策、對極端分子的態度及國內外重大事件等對美國伊拉克政策的影響，顯示美國不會因政黨及總統改變而轉變其外交政策，其政策是延續性的，政策的最高原則仍是將國家利益與安全放在第一位。 / The Middle East which is located at the junction of the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, is important for both geography and energy. That is the reason why all powerful countries wanted to occupy it. Iraq which includes Mesopotamia is in the central location of Middle East and takes the second leading in the world’s oil output. However, Iraq is usually in a unstable situation because of religious tribal disputes and keen competition of many powerful countries. After the 911attacks, the United States identified Iraq as the key of the evil countries and also a terrorist organization. The U.S. sent troops to attack Iraq and planned to transform Iraq into a democratic example of the Middle East with "American democracy". However, the U.S. paid a great price, and faced lots of criticism from the international community. The United States launched a war against Iraq across the term of office from President George W. Bush to President Barack Obama. Because the two presidents of different political parties and leading styles were influenced with various internal and external events, they also held different policies to Iraq. To analyze and compare the measures took by these two presidents in the Iraq war will help us to explore the situation of the U. S. foreign policies during the two political parties. After analyzing the foreign policies of President George W. Bush and President Obama towards Iraq and terrorist, we can know that the U.S. did not change its foreign policy through the two presidents of different political parties. The policy practiced by U.S. is continuous and consistent. The U.S. always put the nation’s interests and safety in the first place.

The main topic of my diploma thesis is political marketing and presidential election in USA in 2008. Firstly, I described American society through its demographic, racial, social and religious aspects. Then I wrote about public opinion and political socializing of individuals, how they are created and learned through individuals' lives. Political ideology in USA is represented by two mainstream political trends: liberals and conservatives. Thesis then describes strategy in politics, planning of political campaigns and marketing communication in politics. Second part of my thesis describes presidential election in USA in 2008. Introduction is focused on two main candidates: Barack Obama and John McCain. Then it continues with main points and highlights of each presidential campaign. Special part is focused on presidential debates which are very popular in American society. Besides main candidates, thesis describes also vice president candidates and wives of presidential candidates. The final part of the thesis is focused on financial aspect of elections and funding in politics.

This thesis presents a discourse analysis of American perceptions of Russia in their historical and contemporary context. Through the linguistic construction of security offered by the Copenhagen School of Securitization, we can trace the socio-political development of Russia as the threatening other in the American discourse. This thesis has demonstrated the consistency of linguistic devices in the American Russia discourse from the 18th century to the Crimean Crisis, and has identified specific linguistic packages which securitizing actors unpack according to their preferences and goals in a given situation. This thesis also demonstrates that the resecuritization of a previously desecuritized object may occur through the use of preexisting discursive devices that play on existing elements of the national consciousness. Keywords Resecuritization, Securitization, United States, Russia, Socio-Political Discourse, Crimean Crisis, Copenhagen School, Obama Administration, Vladimir Putin Range of thesis: 121 pages, 34,048 words, 240,229 keystrokes.

This diploma thesis deals with the influence of changing nature of the terrorist threat on the foreign policy of the United States during the presidency of Barack Obama in the region of Middle East, together with the impact of changes in this foreign policy on the cooperation and relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The changing nature of the terrorist threat is analyzed primarily on the example of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and analyzed are also the circumstances of its rise, the events of the Arab Spring. The course of these events is shown in the cases of countries important for the current U.S. foreign policy in the region, therefore in the cases of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen and the U.S. foreign policy is analyzed in relation with its reaction on these events. Shown is the shift in this foreign policy, tied with the changes in the counterterrorism policy due to the changes in the nature of the terrorist threat. Resulting foreign policy is analyzed using the Foreign Policy Analysis and its models, which helps to explain the apparent rift in the Obama administration in relation to Middle East. The last chapter focuses primarily on the cooperation of the United States with Saudi Arabia and the Saudi relation with terrorism. Shown are Saudi counterterrorism...

This diploma thesis is an analysis of Bush and Obama administrations' approach towards Sino-American military relations. The topic of this thesis is the military cooperation between the People's Republic China (PRC) and the United States. The paper analyzes the trends and topics of the military-to-military contacts through the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) theory. The bilateral relationship between the two countries is the most important relationship in the 21st century and its development has worldwide implications. Historically, there have been multiple points of tension where interests of both countries collided, many of which persisted to be sources of the new unease. The American support to Taiwan through numerous arms-sales, increased Chinese militarization of space, cyberspace and the South China Sea are the main causes of reluctant military-to-military cooperation between the PRC and the U.S. It is vital for the rest of the global community that both superpowers keep an acceptable amount of tensions between their armies and ideally pursue more cooperation than competition. The paper concludes that the Sino-American military relations have gone through an on-and-off pattern during both Bush administrations, mainly due to aforementioned American support for Taiwan, and due to the types...

This Master's Thesis analyzes various roles that First Ladies of the United States take upon when their spouses are elected President of the United States. Even though the role of First Ladies is undefined, the public still expects a certain level of manners and dedication to their selected causes. The influence of First Ladies is, on the one hand limited by the fact that they do not have any real policies to follow. On the other hand, the platform of First Ladyship offers a great deal to influence and ability to raise awareness to causes they care about. The main argument is that Mrs. Obama had a particular skill to promote her initiatives and to turn negative attention by the media to the rights directions. Additionally, she was able to get the attention of corporations and state officials to help her make a real impact on her initiatives. Her authenticity and fun engaging style helped her with engaging young people into her campaigns and her status of popular First Lady. Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to find out how the role of First Lady changed during Michelle Obama's term as First Lady and what kind of influence her initiatives brought. Finally, the analyses shows that Michelle Obama was a very active First Lady that pushed the role of the First Lady forward. Her well though...

American Foreign Policy towards Iran: 2006-2010 author: Daniel Soukop date: 16 May 2013 Abstract In the long term, relations between the United States and Iran can be painted as complicated, tense and hostile. This diploma thesis analyzes the American foreign policy towards Iran between 2006 and 2010. This time period was essential for American-Iranian relations for several reasons. First, the American rhetoric towards Iran got significantly intense during the George W. Bush administration. It started with the Bush's "Axis of Evil" and peaked with the National Security Strategy of 2006, according to which the United States were aiming at a complete change of Iranian internal and external behavior, and were ready to use all means necessary to achieve this ultimate objective. The highest Iranian leaders consequently gave in to paranoia and under the fear of losing their own power brought Iran into an even more defensive position, although the United States needed the direct opposite. Second, in February 2006, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) handed over the issue regarding the Iranian nuclear program to the UN Security Council. Thereby the United States got an opportunity to push for multilateral sanctions on Iran. Third, at the beginning of 2009, the United States awaited the change of...

Les approches psychologiques connaissent un essor dans l’étude des relations internationales. Elles sont essentielles dans l’étude du processus cognitif des leaders, qui est central à la prise de décisions en politique étrangère. Notre recherche porte sur l’axe d’engagement choisi par les États-Unis envers les alliés, de l’unilatéralisme au multilatéralisme, dans l’adoption des politiques étrangères et s’il est déterminé par la vision du monde des présidents. Parmi les politiques étrangères américaines adoptées entre 2001 et 2013, nous retenons les plus significatives en termes de multilatéralisme, afin de construire la variable dépendante. Le cadre théorique utilisé, le code opérationnel, propose l’analyse du schéma cognitif de leaders à l’aide d’une étude de contenu de leurs écrits et de leurs discours. Cette théorie énonce que la vision du monde inhérente à un leader influence le comportement et les décisions du gouvernement dans les relations internationales. Cette étude examinera les discours relatifs à la politique étrangère américaine prononcés lors des mandats de George W. Bush et lors du premier mandat de Barack Obama en tentant de comparer empiriquement les résultats de leur code opérationnel à leur degré de multilatéralisme avéré dans leurs décisions. Nos résultats ne montrent pas de liens directs entre la vision du monde des présidents et l’axe d’engagement adopté en politique extérieure. Nous en concluons que la méthode d’analyse quantitative ne nous permet pas de déceler de changements concrets entre les mandats des présidents. Nous proposons alors d'autres explications concurrentes comme la théorie des élites ou l’ordre international libéral qui pourraient mieux répondre à notre problématique. / Cognitive theories are increasingly recognized in international relations studies. They are necessary in the study of a leader's cognitive process which is central to foreign policy decision-making. This study focuses on the axis of commitment the United States has adopted towards allies, from unilateralist to multilateralist, and analyzes if it is influenced by the president’s worldview. American foreign policies adopted between 2001-2013 are selected according to their relevance to multilateralism to construct the dependent variable. Our theoretical framework is the operational code, which allows an evaluation of the cognitive scheme according to public and private content discourse analysis. This theory suggests that the president’s worldview has an impact on government's behaviour and decisions making within international relations. This research is based on George W. Bush’s foreign policy speeches during his two mandates and on Barack Obama’s first mandate speeches, seeking to empirically compare their operational codes to the levels of multilateralism resulting from their decisions. Our findings cannot establish a direct link between the president's worldview and their position on the foreign policy commitment axis. We conclude that our quantitative analysis method is not adapted to illustrate a tangible change between the president's mandates. Therefore, we suggest alternative explanations such as the elite theory and the liberal international order which could better answer our research question.

The Multiple Streams model developed by John Kingdon (1995) and Nikolaos Zahariadis (2007) provides a valuable framework for understanding the nature of policy change. This investigation draws extensively upon the Multiple Streams framework in order to understand the development of gun-control policy initiatives under President Barack Obama. The investigation uses a case-study approach with in-depth analysis of four different mass-shooting events that took place in the United States between 2009 and 2012. Reconstruction of the shooting events and detailed parsing of the Obama administration’s official responses to each incident, when viewed through the Multiple Streams lens, clearly explain why Obama’s aggressive policy initiative was so delayed in its emergence in spite of several shootings and the President’s clearly stated belief that gun-reform was a necessary step for the federal government. While the term “policy change” is broad and may encompass all sorts of governmental responsiveness, the term herein should be interpreted in the narrowest sense: exclusively encompassing legislative initiatives. Ultimately, the investigation concludes that numerous factors, but most prominently concerns about the timing and results of the 2010 Midterm and 2012 General Elections, prevented an aggressive pursuit of gun-reform prior to January 2013. The tragic shooting of 28 people in Newtown, Connecticut, then served as a prime focusing event for the President to aggressively engage a long-standing goal.