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Les dirigeants et les décideurs responsables de la politique extérieure sont soucieux de la réputation de l’État qu’ils représentent. Ce constat fait l’objet d’un consensus parmi les partisans et les sceptiques qui débattent de l’importance du concept de réputation en politique internationale. Pourtant, ce phénomène demeure peu problématisé et surtout peu étudié. Ainsi, la recherche effectuée dans cette thèse a pour objectif de combler cette lacune en répondant à la question suivante : comment les préoccupations de réputation orientent-elles les décisions prises en situation de crise sécuritaire internationale? Nous proposons une nouvelle manière de conceptualiser la réputation : il ne s’agit pas simplement d’un outil essentiel pour maintenir la crédibilité d’un État et défendre ses intérêts en matière de sécurité et de coopération (perspective stratégique), mais aussi d’un élément crucial de l’image de soi des individus responsables de sa politique extérieure qui veulent éviter l’émergence d’un sentiment d’insécurité identitaire (perspective constitutive). Notre regard empirique se porte sur le rôle des préoccupations de réputation dans le contexte de la politique étrangère des États-Unis, un pays dont les présidents et leurs conseillers sont reconnus pour être particulièrement soucieux de l’image qu’ils projettent à travers leurs déclarations et leurs actions. En plus des perspectives stratégique et constitutive, nous proposons une approche décisionnelle centrée sur le groupe – une unité composée par le président et ses principaux conseillers en matière de sécurité nationale – pour mieux comprendre l’influence des préoccupations de réputation sur les décisions de politique étrangère. Nous affirmons que ces préoccupations sont plus susceptibles d’être prépondérantes dans les délibérations en situation de crise lorsque le président est activement impliqué dans la prise de décision et lorsque le niveau de cohésion du groupe décisionnel est élevé. Nous testons ces hypothèses à travers une étude de cas des décisions prises par l’administration de Bill Clinton lors de sept épisodes de crises sécuritaires survenus dans le cadre de la guerre en Bosnie-Herzégovine (1993-95). À l’aide la méthode du process-tracing, nous évaluons la validité de notre approche décisionnelle et celle des explications alternatives pour mieux comprendre le rôle que jouèrent les préoccupations de réputation dans les délibérations qui précédèrent ces décisions. Cette analyse s’appuie sur des données originales récoltées lors d’entretiens semi-dirigés effectués avec des décideurs et hauts fonctionnaires responsables du dossier de la guerre en Bosnie, ainsi que sur une analyse exhaustive des documents d’archives disponibles à la bibliothèque présidentielle William J. Clinton. _____________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : réputation, crédibilité, préoccupations de réputation, image de soi, sécurité identitaire, États-Unis, politique étrangère, prise de décision, crise sécuritaire, Bill Clinton, Bosnie-Herzégovine

This dissertation uses Critical Discourse Analysis to study debates among elite members and affiliates of the Democratic Party from 1988-2008 on class issues and their relevance to the party's environmental agenda. This research builds off of several related historical and theoretical accounts (both primary and secondary) of new social and economic divisions between college-educated and non-college educated workers that have shaped American politics since the 1970s. I focus on how Democratic interest in environmentalism changed as a 'professional-managerial-class' or 'new class' supplanted unionized, industrial workers as the primary social base of the Democratic party. I trace how related people and groups associated with the party understood the relevance of these different classes to consolidating enduring electoral power, and how these informed specific arguments for what ideological views or policy proposals the party should publicly embrace. Furthermore, I identify 'green' narratives related to environmental protection, as an emerging thematic framework that some Democrats felt could help them build a coalition based primarily around support from educated, white-collar workers. I contend that the ideological character of the party's environmental rhetoric, as articulated in this debate, has been influenced mostly by attempts to tailor the party's agenda to the perceived sensibilities of the college-educated, rather than the older working-class base. My analysis proposes three overarching core concepts most often ascribed to the professional class and its members' ideological disposition. I use the discursive method described above to explore their relationship to the framing of the climate issue and its connection to broader ideological values. These are (A) Meritocracy (B) Technocratic Rationality, and (C) Individualism. I argue these professional-oriented climate narratives can be understood as adapting the conceptual reasoning of an older liberal tradition to the structural conditions of the post-70s, globalized economy. Specifically, that the frequent emphasis on these three concepts implicit to the PMC-centric discourse is consistent with a liberal view of freedom as 'non-interference', and a related hostility to democratic interventions into the market. This ideological analysis is significant to the dissertation's focus on framings of climate change because an account this conceptual logic reveals the potential limits of the Democrats' efforts to create majoritarian, political support for environmental protection.

Abstract: Since the end of the Cold War, there has frequently been a gap between the expectations of American foreign-policy decision-makers and the reality of subsequent events. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush entered office with a high degree of optimism about the United States’ capacity, as the world’s sole superpower, to usher in changes in international politics that would create a freer, safer, and more prosperous world. However, policy choices made in pursuit of this goal often produced unintended, unanticipated, and sometimes counter-productive results. One area in which this was the case was the United States’ relationship with Russia. Between 1993 and 2008, the Clinton and Bush administrations led efforts to “reset” the bilateral relationship, and build a new partnership that transcended the Cold War’s legacy of confrontation and distrust. In both cases, the policies pursued by the United States tended to reinforce Russian suspicion, resentment, and hostility towards American foreign policy and its goals, leaving the Russo-American relationship even worse off.1 This study seeks to examine one cause of the disconnect between the anticipated and actual results of American foreign policy choices with regard to Russia during the Clinton and Bush presidencies. The investigation adopts as a model what Keren Yarhi-Milo called the selective attention thesis. She posits that leaders, in their effort to predict the future behaviour of other states, tend to weigh various sorts of information differently. Psychological biases such as confirmation bias and vividness bias tend to cause people to pay more attention to information that supports their existing beliefs and less attention to conflicting information, especially in cases when there is a difference in vividness between these sorts of information.2 The available evidence in public statements, government records, and the memoirs of the presidents and their key advisors shows that information which supported Clinton and Bush’s liberal interpretations of international politics received more attention than did information that challenged their assumptions, which was sometimes ignored, misinterpreted, or dismissed. In this sense, they were what Isaiah Berlin called “hedgehogs,” i.e. the type of person who seeks to relate everything to a central organizing principle. This pattern of behaviour repeatedly resulted in misperception of their Russian counterparts’ own worldviews, priorities, and concerns. Such misperception contributed to the selection of policies that further strained, rather than improved, relations with Russia, and also led to American administrations being more surprised by Russian reactions to US policy than they might otherwise have been. 1. Angela E. Stent identified the reset-disappointment cycle in her book The Limits of Partnership: U.S.- Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014). 2. Keren Yarhi-Milo, Knowing the Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence, and Assessment of Intentions in International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014). “Vividness” refers to the degree to which information is emotionally weighty, concrete, proximate in time and space, as well as easily imaginable. For example, dramatic, first-person experiences are highly vivid, while information acquired by reading a technical report tends to be less so.

North Korea’s road of survival began in the aftermath of World War II, when the United States and the Soviet Union sparred over rival ideologies. Ultimately, Korea split into a free south and an authoritarian north. Over seventy years later, North Korea remains a bastion of communism. Nuclear weaponry is a factor behind North Korea’s survival, and the history of their program can offer insight for American policy makers today. This paper offers a history of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program during the Clinton presidency, along with recommendations for present day policy makers. Without an understanding of history decision-makers tend to make mistakes and act rashly. It is imperative America understands its diplomatic issues with North Korea, and provide diplomatic, strategic, and military solutions for future negotiations.

This thesis provides a rhetorical analysis of public space in Arkansas and examines the ways in which the myth of Southern Atonement is constructed within those spaces. Three formal elements characterize Southern Atonement: absolution from the past, distinctiveness in constructed authenticity, and hope for a post-racial future. The analysis develops over three case studies which I argue contribute to the construction, engagement, and actualization of this cultural myth. The first chapter looks at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and The Unexpected art project as a source of identity construction and place attachment. Then I examine The Billgrimage, or the monuments and museums attributed to Bill Clinton’s Arkansas legacy. I argue that this journey functions as a source of engagement for the community and asks the visitors to use Southern Atonement as a political and cultural toolkit. Finally, I explore the town of Wilson, Arkansas, and examine the ways in which Southern Atonement has been actualized as a cohesive identity through community revitalization and public memory. Southern Atonement, as developed through the rhetoric of public space and place in Arkansas, posits the statewide community towards a future that both acknowledges the historical sins of the past while moving forward through political and cultural reimagining of what it means to be Arkansan and Southern. In doing so, some voices – particularly those of minority and low-income populations – are often omitted from the public memory narrative in order to alleviate hegemonic guilt without actual policy and social reform. In an effort to atone for the past, some efforts of displacement and disenfranchisement are occurring to support a political agenda.

Jednym z wyzwań w pierwszej połowie lat 90. minionego stulecia, z którymi musiały zmierzyć się Stany Zjednoczone, był rozpad Jugosławii i towarzyszące mu konflikty zbrojne w Słowenii, Chorwacji oraz Bośni i Hercegowinie. Na przełomie lat 80. i 90. XX w. federacja jugosłowiańska – z problemami wewnętrznymi, narastającą falą nacjonalizmu itd. – znalazła się na obrzeżach zainteresowań Waszyngtonu. Kluczowe znaczenie dla Ameryki miały wówczas Bliski Wschód, Niemcy, ZSRR. Po ogłoszeniu przez Chorwację i Słowenię niepodległości administracja George’a Busha chętnie zgodziła się, by bałkańskim problemem zajęli się Europejczycy, którzy sami powtarzali, iż to jest „ich godzina”. Po kilku miesiącach walk w Chorwacji negocjatorom międzynarodowym udało się uzyskać zgodę walczących stron na rozmieszczenie sił pokojowych ONZ w tym państwie. W kwietniu 1992 r. rozpoczął się konflikt w Bośni – najkrwawsza odsłona rozpadu Jugosławii. Amerykanie przez długi czas unikali prób włączenia ich w proces pokojowy. Ograniczali swoją aktywność np. do wsparcia we współfinansowaniu misji „błękitnych hełmów”, dostaw żywności, leków itd. Podczas rządów Busha, jak i Billa Clintona, przeciwko angażowaniu się w rozwiązanie konfliktów jugosłowiańskich występowali przedstawiciele armii USA, obawiając się powtórki z Wietnamu. Decydujące rozstrzygnięcia nastąpiły w 1995 r.: groźba wycofania sił pokojowych, sukcesy sił chorwacko-muzułmańskich, utrata przez Serbów zachodniej Slawonii i Krajiny, zbrodnia w Srebrenicy. Wydarzenia te wpłynęły na zmianę sytuacji na frontach w Bośni i Chorwacji, ale również zagrożona była wiarygodność i skuteczność USA i NATO. Ostatecznie czynniki te oraz masakra w Sarajewie w sierpniu 1995 r. doprowadziły do interwencji NATO przeciwko Serbom i „siłowej dyplomacji” Richarda Hobrooke’a, która zakończyła się porozumieniem w Dayton.

"An earlier version of this article was presented on February 28, 2014, at the Martz Winter Symposium, hosted by the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment of the University of Colorado Law School."

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.

The President performs many roles, but one role of increasing importance over time is that of Chief Manager of the Economy. In the era of the modern presidency, there has been a growing institutionalization of the executive branch’s management of the economy. Presidents approach economic management differently depending upon their personalities, management style, and their time within both the crisis and the administration. Three case studies will be used to explore the differences and similarities in presidential actions during times of economic crisis: these case studies will examine the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard M. Nixon, and William J. Clinton. The different methods and policy actions taken by these presidents are described as change oriented economic policy, electoral gain economic policy, and preemptive economic policy. This research will examine these methods to determine: 1.) How did each president approach economic policy? 2.) Were their approaches similar to a domestic policy or foreign policy? and 3.) What factors influence these approaches?

This paper reports on a comparative analysis of the environmental policy campaign promises and in-term performances of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. The study divides environmental policy promises into domestic and global issues, and evaluates presidential performance with campaign promises, categorizing performance into five categories: comparable action, partially comparable action, no action, mixed action, and contrary action. Results of the analysis reveal a markedly lower level of promise fulfillment for environmental promises, particularly promises concerning global environmental issues, than for campaign promises in general. The promise fulfillment disparity arises from the intergenerational and politically subordinate nature of environmental policy.

This thesis examines how John Travolta's complex identity contributes to the emergent "sensitive patriarch" model for American masculinity. A study of the roles that Travolta played in the 1990s demonstrates that he, like Bill Clinton, represented the white male body's potential to act as the benevolent patriarchal figure in a culture increasingly cognizant of its diversity, while justifying the continued cultural dominance of white middle-class males. Memories of Travolta's star image in the 1970s and his benevolent public appearances help reinforce the perception that the normative values and identities of celebrities are "real," even if they are inherently contradictory. This thesis calls for more critical evaluations of celebrity personae, arguing that Travolta's film performances demonstrate how "hard-body" conservatism adapts and endures over time, even when certain public figures appear to challenge traditional masculinity and long-established cultural hegemony.

This project examines the foreign policy rhetoric of Bill Clinton in the post-Cold War world. My reading of Clinton’s rhetoric reveals that a change/order binary underwrote his oratory. Clinton defined change as being the underlying guidepost of the post-Cold War international setting. Order was defined through how he could guide, shape, direct, and manage American foreign policy in a sea of change, represented through his use of what I call America’s foreign policy vocabulary. This lexicon is based on three rhetorical components—the definitions of America’s role in the world, identification of the enemies we face, and the grand strategy we use to achieve American interest—have been a resource for presidential foreign policy discourse since America’s founding. Clinton’s use of this vocabulary maintained continuity in its use with his predecessors, but he also modified it in key ways to deal with the changes of the global environment. These modifications positioned Clinton to direct and manage the change to serve American interests which offered a semblance of order for American foreign policy in a sea of international disorder.

The president’s agenda and Congress’s support for the president’s programs are key drivers in American public policy and electoral politics. The study of presidential-legislative relations, however, lacks a broad and rigorous treatment of the normal legislative process, from initial presidential position taking on votes before the House to final veto override votes cast by Congress. This dissertation broadly examines two stages of the normal legislative process, presidential position-taking and House support for the president’s positions, using a data set consisting of more than 3,200 House votes representing the first terms of the Carter through Clinton administrations. The dissertation suggests that three temporal contexts—regime time; political, or intra administration time; and policymaking or discrete time—prominently shape the politics of presidential position taking and legislative support for the president. My analysis then employs a series of uniquely constructed variables to account for the personal and external context within which the president legislates and attempts to persuade members of the House. By doing so, this dissertation tests the degree to which the legislative or executive branch dominates the policy process. Drawing from a data set that treats presidential position-taking—and subsequent legislative action—as discrete decisions and using a series of binary cross-sectional probit models, the dissertation finds strong evidence suggesting that the waxing and waning of the president’s political capital over regime and political time is among the most critical factors to consider when examining legislative-executive relations. These findings call into question past analyses of presidential-congressional relationships that fail to account for the dynamic nature of presidential and/or legislative dominance of the policy process. The dissertation concludes by discussing directions for subsequent research.

"© 2005 by the Regents of the University of California. Reprinted from Ecology Law Quarterly, Vol. 32 No. 2, by permission of the Regents of the University of California."

I've always been fascinated by the arabesques behind daily life: the interconnectedness of all living things, the patterns they arrange around themselves, the rhythms at play between them. And I don’t really get intoxicated all that often. The tracings of these rhythms can be found in all great art, though they’re easier to see in belly dances, Irish gravestones, and the Chinese knots guarding the Heaven Temple walls. They’re in the telling of a good story. I’ve worked to that end in this collection, with various approaches—different narrative styles, points of view, and effects—and, as a matter of course, with varying degrees of success.

This dissertation studies the 1994 U.S. intervention in Haiti, focusing on causation (why did Bill Clinton decide to intervene in Haiti?) and consequences (what did the United States and the United Nations achieve from 1994 to 2001?). Regarding U.S. motives, the dissertation argues that economics and ideology played secondary roles in convincing the Clinton administration to intervene in Haiti. Restoring U.S. and presidential credibility; stopping the flow of Haitian refugees; securing the political support of the Congressional Black Caucus; and responding to demands by Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide were the decisive factors. Regarding consequences, the dissertation views the U.S./U.N. occupation as a political and economic failure. U.S. occupation forces, particularly during the first few months following the 1994 intervention, limited themselves to basic law and order, often with the help of former Haitian soldiers. Political strife soon resumed. A politically divided Haitian government refused to approve economic reforms requested by foreign donors and thus failed to seize this opportunity to better the economic lot of most Haitians. Sources for the dissertation are: World Bank, IMF, UN, OAS, U.S., and Haitian internal government documents; documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act; interviews with participants; published government documents; U.S., Haitian, French, Canadian, and Venezuelan newspapers and magazines; and secondary literature.

Monitoring the popularity of the president is a vital aspect of public opinion research today. Presidential approval has become a very closely watched political indicator in the United States. The measure of job approval has grown in importance over time. It is now argued by many that a president's personal standing with the public is a very important aspect of his political power. While pollsters often report on "gaps" in presidential approval, citing differences in approval between socio-demographic groups, in most cases, the socio-demographic gaps referred to by pollsters are the products of simple bivariate analyses. Seldom are further steps taken by pollsters to investigate the reality of whether or not these gaps in approval actually exist when controlling for other factors. The focus of this research is directed towards the "gender gap" in presidential approval. In the literature review that follows, we see in detail that there is a gap between women and men, with women tending to the left and men tending to the right on many issues, including presidential approval. But does this frequently observed "gender gap" reflect a real difference in the political preferences of American men and women, or is it just an artifact of simple bivariate analyses, with many uncontrolled variables? In addition, does this "gender gap" interact with other socio-demographic variables to move presidential approval? This thesis tests the reality of the "Gender Gap" through a multivariate analysis of Ohio Polls conducted during the administration of Bill Clinton.