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Copyright of Athenaeum: Polskie Studia Politologiczne is the property of Faculty of Political Science & Security Studies Nicolaus Copernicus University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Drawing upon the Schiffrin’s analytical model of footing, positioning, and stances as mechanisms for reframing and re-voicing experiences, this study (as a qualitative approach) investigates the contextualization of an event through the narration of stories in the practical domain of political discourse, specifically presidential speeches. To accomplish this goal, a discourse analysis is conducted on four stories in four political speeches delivered by Barack Obama, the former president of the United States to identify the evolution in their structural composition. The model of attitudinal stance proposed by Qaiwer is integrated into the analysis. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the concept of hegemony seeking within the framework of narrative-based discourse analysis. The focus is on the correlation between the narrative and the formation of attitudes, rather than on the narrative itself. The analysis reveals variations in the four recounted versions presented by Obama in different contexts. These noticeable changes and discrepancies may be attributed to the specific objectives of each speech, whether focused on self/other campaigning or policy advocacy.

Copyright of Reflexión Politica is the property of Universidad Autonoma de Bucaramanga, UNAB and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Coastal and ocean management in the United States is a complex issue requiring an equally complex management policy. Federal policy has historically been carried out in a siloed (sector-by-sector) fashion causing inefficient and bureaucratic management by federal agencies. The Obama administration took a novel approach to coastal and ocean management by signing an executive order that brought together federal agencies and empowered regional stakeholders, creating a first of its kind comprehensive National Ocean Policy. In 2018, former President Donald Trump rescinded the Obamaera policy and enacted his own version of National Ocean Policy that shifted authority to the states and focused on the economic potential of American waters. This research addresses a significant challenge in federal management of a complex natural resource. Here we identify common management strategies between different administrations to provide insights for future attempts at National Ocean Policy. We collect policy documents, press releases, and congressional testimony from high-level stakeholders and identified the most common themes over a 12-year period from 2009-2021. We find three common themes between the administrations even though their policies varied in strategy and scope: 1) the importance of a strong and enduring marine economy, 2) creating a strategic and efficient ocean policy, and 3) devolving authority from the federal government to state and regional decision-makers. We argue that coastal and ocean management via executive order is too easily rescinded to have a lasting impact. These novel findings highlight potential strategies for bipartisan cooperation in future attempts at National Ocean Policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal and ocean management in the United States is a complex issue requiring an equally complex management policy. Federal policy has historically been carried out in a siloed (sector-by-sector) fashion causing inefficient and bureaucratic management by federal agencies. The Obama administration took a novel approach to coastal and ocean management by signing an executive order that brought together federal agencies and empowered regional stakeholders, creating a first of its kind comprehensive National Ocean Policy. In 2018, former President Donald Trump rescinded the Obama-era policy and enacted his own version of National Ocean Policy that shifted authority to the states and focused on the economic potential of American waters. This research addresses a significant challenge in federal management of a complex natural resource. Here we identify common management strategies between different administrations to provide insights for future attempts at National Ocean Policy. We collect policy documents, press releases, and congressional testimony from high-level stakeholders and identified the most common themes over a 12-year period from 2009-2021. We find three common themes between the administrations even though their policies varied in strategy and scope: 1) the importance of a strong and enduring marine economy, 2) creating a strategic and efficient ocean policy, and 3) devolving authority from the federal government to state and regional decision-makers. We argue that coastal and ocean management via executive order is too easily rescinded to have a lasting impact. These novel findings highlight potential strategies for bipartisan cooperation in future attempts at National Ocean Policy.

This article examines attitudes toward property, government, access to housing, integration, and community identity as expressed in the discourse surrounding the struggle over fair housing in Westchester, New York surrounding the 2009 court-ordered settlement. Building on the 'new suburban history', this article argues that opposition to fair housing drew on long-term conservative trends in the national political culture after 1968, but also reflected the specific dynamics of the early Obama years. Fair housing opponents contend that housing 'choices,' rooted in the values of 'hard work,' meritocracy, private property, and the free market, exemplify the patriotic tradition of American individualism. But, in doing so, they ignore decades of state-sponsored housing discrimination that contradicted free market principles. Drawing heavily on what one scholar has called 'race-based neighborhood stereotyping', these ideas constitute an important starting point for understanding the crippling resistance to fair housing initiatives, since this discourse has proven remarkably durable and politically galvanizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A content analysis of over 1-year worth of online news coverage was undertaken to assess the impact of the election of Barack Obama, America's first Black President, on the overall portrayal of Blacks in the news. Specifically, we investigated whether the potential positive coverage of President Obama and his family displaced more stereotypic coverage of Blacks in the news than simply adding to existing stereotypical portrayals. Results indicate that Blacks achieved greater frequency in coverage compared with prior analyses. However, pervasive stereotyping and negative characterizations of Blacks persisted. Explanations for the minimal impact of the Obama family on the overall presentation of Blacks are discussed within the context of trait attribution and media stacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael Rosen's The Shadow of God includes an account of historical theodicy, which is the idea that the arc of history justifies the ways of God. Formulated by the German Idealists, its American expositors influenced the ideas of the nineteenth-century American theologian and activist Theodore Parker. As the orginator of the phrases "arc of history" and "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," Parker's influence extends to presidents and Supreme Court justices, demonstrating the long and influential afterlife of the German philosophical discourses that Rosen explores. But examining this afterlife also challenges the assumption that we can discern the arc of history without the monotheistic presuppositions present in Parker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines five possible reasons for Russia’s military involvement in the Syrian War. These reasons under consideration are an anti-terror policy, resistance to the unipolarity, domestic populism, overcoming Russia’s isolation after Crimea crisis, and defence of the B. Assad government. I conclude that only the anti-terror and anti-unipolar world motivations were relevant and merged into a single cognitive framework that is prone to launching Syrian military operation.Other factors, such as a paradigmatic shift of the image of the post-unipolar world, as well as overconfidence in air force and artillery, also confirm that the Syrian War cognitively prepared Russia for its future military operation in Ukraine. Russian policymakers became convinced that the unipolar world was coming to an end. In the case of Syria (2015), the ill-fated US-led anti-terror operations intensified Islamic terrorism, which created an existential threat for Russia. In the case of Ukraine (2022), the United States, whose grip on world hegemony they believed was on the decline, was trying to use Ukraine as a bridgehead for military aggression against Russia. This study is a result of an extensive survey of the relevant literature and my own expert interviews conducted in Moscow in March 2020.

The aim of this research is to analyze the political discourse and the language they used in public addresses provided by two former presidents of the United States, specifically, President Barak Obama and President Donald Trump. This research reflects on the material that has been collected for several months which aimed to contribute on the analysis of the corpus, distinctions and similarities, as well as their attitudes towards the public opinion. The objectives of this study are mainly empirical and theoretical. Considering the empirical objectives, this study seeks to explore, identify and categorize the most used words in a political speech according to the categories, form, function and meaning, whereas, the theoretical objectives of this study are to provide a description of the language that is used in major events from well-known politicians when aiming to capture people’s attention. Their rhetorical habits were examined, in every delivery of Mr. Obama’s political speech; his speeches were carefully and well-articulated throughout his 8 year political service in the oval office, portraying him as a kind person. On the other hand, Mr. Trump’s, as a non-politician, more as a businessman, political speeches throughout his campaign and 4 years in the office were very often seen as aggressive, unforeseen, and nonetheless straight to the point.

" Words Matter: Presidents Obama and Trump, Twitter, and U.S. Soft Power. Graph [9] concentrate on the issues that soured the initial optimism for a U.S.-U.K. free trade agreement between President Trump and Prime Minister Johnson which did not come to its planned fruition by 2020. EN Social Media Foreign Policy Twitter Soft Power Obama Trump Boris Johnson Humanitarian Intervention President Clinton Bosnia Kosovo China Sri-Lanka Kazakhstan South Korea ASEAN Sub-Saharan Africa Information Technology. NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Presidential Tweets, the U.S.-U.K. Free Trade Agreement, Humanitarian Intervention, and China's Bilateral Relations. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Reflexión Politica is the property of Universidad Autonoma de Bucaramanga, UNAB and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Introduction: In addition to the main and announced goals of the US government for attacking Afghanistan, including: the destruction of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda Network, advancing the process of democratization and nation-state building, strengthening the governmental and political structure, creating stability and security, there were other goals on the agenda, the most important of which was access to important mineral resources and energy transfer routes from Central Asia to South Asia, preventing Russia from regaining power and controlling China and Iran. It is obvious that the achievement of the above-mentioned goals by the United States required the existence of a grand strategy in the foreign policy of this country regarding the issue of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a review of the actions and approaches announced and implemented by the American government during the three terms of the presidency of George Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, clearly confirms this issue. Adopting different and sometimes conflicting approaches and strategies, Bush's "Anti-Terrorism and "Counterinsurgency Strategies", Obama, and Trump's "Zero Base Strategy" is at least three distinct strategies of the US government in this era, which ultimately ended in the withdrawal of the US military forces from Afghanistan after 20 years of presence in this country. Research Question: The main question of the article is what are the evidence for the change in the approach of the US foreign policy towards Afghanistan in the three mentioned periods? And what is the relationship between Afghanistan's internal developments and this change of approach? Research Hypothesis: The change in the US foreign policy approach towards Afghanistan has been affected by the internal developments of this country caused by the resistance of armed groups, especially the Taliban, against US policies and the failure of the announced and implemented programs of this country during the presidency of Bush, Obama and Trump. Methodology and Theoretical Framework: Since the first question of the article seeks to provide evidence of the change in the strategy of the United States regarding Afghanistan in the three terms of the presidency, by adapting the methodology of a comparative study at the descriptive level, the most important features that support the change in these three periods should be mentioned. Next, by focusing on the second question, we will investigate the relationship between two variables: the change in the US approach with the internal developments of this country from a descriptive and inferential point of view and analyzing the logic governing this change of approach, focusing on one of the causes mentioned in the systemic theory of James Rosena Results and Discussion: The findings show that the US diplomatic system did not follow the same approach in Afghanistan during the two terms of Bush's presidency and unlike the 2002 strategy, which sought a combination of ideological and strategic goals from its presence in Afghanistan, in the 2006 strategy, the security aspect of these goals was dominant got more priority. In the Obama administration, the revival of the US global influence and the destruction of terrorist groups required a transition from a counterterrorism strategy to a counter-insurgency. In the Obama administration, the restoration of the US global influence and the destruction of terrorist groups required a transition from anti-terrorism strategy to counter-insurgency. From this point of view, both the weakening of Bush's anti-terrorism strategy and the clarification of Obama's counter-insurgency strategy clearly indicate the role of Afghan internal groups in the failure of America's policies and successive changes in strategy. Conclusion: Apart from the ups and downs of the US relations with Afghan government officials, there are three other reasons: the rise of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban during the time of the US presence, the emergence of many internal problems in Afghanistan and the disgust of a large part of the Afghan people with the US government due to its inability to reduce insecurity. There are three reasons all of which confirm the prominent role of internal developments, especially the confrontation of groups such as the Taliban with the US policies. This means that even armed local groups with minimal facilities, if they stand up, can force them to make continuous changes in their strategy in addition to the failure of the policies of the great and superior powers. It is not possible simply by relying on the established approaches of power in the paradigm of realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay offers a critical rhetorical analysis of neoconservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza's popular political documentary film, 2016: Obama's America. I argue that the documentary's narrative emulates conservative Black Frankenstein stories, whereby a monstrous black slave revolts against his white slave owner, justifying a violent white backlash to restore white supremacy [Young, E. (2008). Black Frankenstein: The making of an American metaphor. New York: New York University Press]. Obama's America re-presents overt and inferential antiblack racist caricatures that depict President Obama as a ruling mixed mulatto monstrosity determined to destroy America. I argue that D'Souza's documentary aimed to revive extreme white conservative resistance to Obama's presidency, specifically by equating Obama's 2012 re-election with America's looming economic collapse and escalating threats of Islamist terrorism. To deflect racist accusations, D'Souza adopts a journalistic persona and re-presents a colonial narrative, which suggests that racism and colonialism no longer exist, thereby sanitizing and idealizing contemporary America neocolonialism. Finally, I argue that the popular conservative depictions of Obama as a menacing mulatto monster destroying America were precursors of a white backlash against America's first black U.S. president and his multicultural coalition, culminating in Donald Trump's presidential victory in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama are two of the most significant presidents in the history of the United States of America. Both served as leaders during times of economic uncertainty and implemented economic policies that had far-reaching effects on the country's economic landscape. Ronald Reagan's "trickle-down economics" was a cornerstone of his economic policies during his presidency from 1981 to 1989. His policies were centred on the idea that by cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans, it would stimulate economic growth and create more jobs. On the other hand, Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act was focused on providing access to affordable health care to all Americans, regardless of their income level. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the economic doctrines of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, with a focus on their ideologies, policies, and impacts on the American economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Strategic Affairs Magazine is the property of Strategic Affairs Magazine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A cacophony of protest greeted President Biden's withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan following a 20-year deployment, implemented and overseen by four different administrations, both Republican and Democrat. For all the criticism of the final withdrawal's implementation, however, strategic ambivalence was always present in U.S. operations in Afghanistan. The bi-partisan decisions that defined the Afghan mission can best be seen in the National Security Strategy documents produced by successive administrations as they sought to address the evolving situation on the ground and the perceived level of threat to the United States. The utilization of discourse analysis to examine these official policy documents allows for an understanding of the comparable attention that was paid to Afghanistan by successive administrations, as well as for an appreciation of the tone and language used regarding the nation. Doing so reveals that despite the duration of the mission and the associated costs, a deep-seated strategic ambiguity existed towards Afghanistan, as it languished as a sideshow for U.S. grand strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Strategic Affairs Magazine is the property of Strategic Affairs Magazine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Bu çalışmada Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nin Afrika politikası, Soğuk Savaş dönemi ve sonrası olmak üzere ikiye ayrılarak incelenmiştir. İki kutuplu dünyada Sovyetler Birliği ve komünist ideolojiyle girişilen rekabette Afrika, Amerikan dış politikasında daha çok rakibine kaptırılmaması gereken bir coğrafya olarak görülmüştür. Sovyetler Birliği’nin dağılmasıyla uluslararası sistemin yegâne gücü haline gelen ABD’nin Afrika'ya ilgisinin Soğuk Savaş sonrası dönemin ilk yıllarında azaldığı gözlemlenmektedir. Ancak yirmi birinci yüzyılın hemen başında ülkesinde gerçekleşen terör saldırılarından sonra, kıtada keşfedilmeye başlanan enerji rezervleri ve Çin başta olmak üzere Avrupa Birliği, Hindistan, Japonya ve Rusya gibi büyük güçlerin Afrika’ya yönelik olarak artan ilgilerinin de etkisiyle ABD, Bush döneminde Afrika’da askeri varlığını arttırma yoluna giderek sadece kıtadan sorumlu ayrı bir komutanlık kurmuş ve kıta ülkelerinin en başta gelen ticari partneri olmuştur. Daha sonra iktidara gelen başkanlarla birlikte Bush dönemine kıyasla Afrika’ya olan ilgi azalmıştır. Obama ve Trump dönemlerinde ABD’nin, Afrika’nın en önemli ticari partneri olma vasfını Çin ve AB’ye kaptırdığı görülmektedir. Dolayısıyla 2001-2008 yıllarında Amerikan dış politikasında önemli bir konuma yükselen Afrika’nın izleyen yıllarda bu öneminin azaldığı görülmektedir. Bu çalışmada 2008 ekonomik krizinin ve ABD’nin enerjide dışa bağımlılığını azaltma isteğinin ABD’nin Afrika politikasında nasıl bir değişiklik yarattığı üzerinde durulacaktır. Çin’in giderek artan Afrika ilgisiyle beraber kıtanın büyük güçlerin rekabet alanı haline gelmiş olması ele alınacaktır.

Este artículo parte de una descripción de ciertos discursos electorales de Barack Obama para remontarse a los orígenes de su slogan “Yes, we can”, entendido como formulación de una esperanza colectiva.

What factors explain variation in decisions to use force in American foreign policy? Consider the Obama administration's decision to intervene in Libya. Upon assuming office, Obama outlined a foreign policy marked by a self-professed doctrine, 'don't do stupid shit'. In short, Obama sought to avoid the unnecessary use of military force, but when the threat of mass atrocity emerged, despite strong protests from senior advisers, he became drawn into the 2011 Libya intervention. By contrast, following chemical weapon attacks in Syria in 2013, Obama reneged on upholding his so-called 'red-line', pursuing diplomatic measures even though support for a military response was strong. But what explains this variation? Rationalist perspectives across the board have tended to overrate interpretive efficiency. Yet, such assumptions obscure the capacity for interests to be interpreted in different ways. To redress this issue, I build on discursive institutionalist insights, developing a model to show how principled and cognitive ideas act as weapons in institutional debates, serving to repress or displace information. To show how agents come to rely on principled or cognitive ideas, I develop a three-part model offering two mechanisms – cognitive repression and normative displacement – by which agents displace and repress certain types of information, depending on the 'form' in which that information is presented. This enables a more comprehensive understanding of how different interpretations lead to policy variation at critical moments of decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo examina la guerra de drones como una forma de caza llevada a cabo por vía satélite desde la base militar aérea de Creech cerca de Las Vegas. El evento revelador inicial es el trauma que sufren los pilotos de drones debido a la intimidad visual con la que contemplan las consecuencias fatídicas de sus acciones. Se analiza el papel de la fantasía en el comportamiento de caza de los pilotos y en la retroalimentación mutua entre terrorismo y contraterrorismo. Se describe cómo funciona «el arte de matar” (De Quincey) en la guerra de drones a base de narrativa, eufemismos y video juegos. El artículo tiene en cuenta el papel trágico de Obama en la proliferación y normalización de los drones armados, así como la situación actual bajo la presidencia de Biden.

The 2008 Financial Recession was one of the most significant fiscal downturns in the history of the United States. Considering that the world is in the midst of a global pandemic which may lead to another adverse economic climate, I believe that looking back at the causes of the 2008 Financial Recession is recommended. This may assist administrators to avoid the missteps which sparked this down economy in the future. By reading this paper, readers will also learn about the demographics effected by the recession and the Dodd-Frank Act, which was drafted to combat future occurrences of this nature.

Referring to the mainstream studies based on the personalization's hypothesis, which positively evaluates signals of dominance shown by leaders, the analysis of Obama's rhetoric stays a relevant exception. His risky recall, during his political talks, of his social difficulties as a child of a mixed couple was in fact one of the more surprising aspects of his success. Nevertheless, reactions to his autobiographical sharing were scarcely explored. Based on the idea that these self-disclosures signal his responsivity toward the audience of low social condition and can, therefore, be defined as a sign of humility, this research aims to test if coherence between Obama's words and his facial expressions of contempt, due to the seriousness of social injustices endured in his childhood, may influence the receivers' perception of such unexpected communication. Before reading a brief autobiographical sharing taken from a "Back-to-school" speech, a highly ritualized monolog the US President addresses each year to students, 175 Italian participants were presented with a photo of Obama displaying either an expression of contempt (taken from the video of the speech) or a neutral expression. Comparisons between self-assessments of perceptions and reactions of participants assigned to the two experimental conditions show that a facial expression of contempt, coherent with words describing his school difficulties, has been crucial for perceiving this humble political discourse as authentic and not as a simple socially desirable posturing. More studies seem to be needed, however, to understand how humble speech could enhance the positive face of leaders or backfire against them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can grieving communities respond to public loss while also seizing the reflective and transformative potential inherent in moments of collective mourning? In this article, I explore this question by analyzing and critiquing fifty-seven of the official funeral speeches Barack Obama delivered during his presidency. I compare Obama's national eulogies to two ancient mourning traditions: the Homeric mode and the Athenian mode. I further argue that, like these ancient modes, Obama's eulogies may suppress critical thought, perpetuate us/them thinking, and prioritize individual interests above communal ties. I therefore propose and theorize the counter-eulogy, a thoughtful, critical, and self-reflective mode of official funeral rhetoric inspired by the counter-monument artistic movement and other alternative mourning practices. I analyze Obama's eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney as an example of a counter-eulogy. In doing so, I illustrate how counter-eulogies preserve the ritual features of traditional national eulogies while also capturing the democratic potentiality inherent in moments of public grief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the unusually large and persistent association between Islamophobia and opposition to President Obama helped make attitudes about Muslims a significant, independent predictor of Americans' broader partisan preferences. After detailing the theoretical basis for this argument, the article marshals repeated cross-sectional data, two panel surveys, and a nationally representative survey experiment, to test its hypotheses. The results from those analyses show the following: (1) attitudes about Muslims were a significantly stronger independent predictor of voter preferences for congress in 2010–2014 elections than they were in 2004–2008; (2) attitudes about Muslims were a significantly stronger independent predictor of mass partisanship during Obama's presidency than they were beforehand; and (3) experimentally connecting Obama to Democratic congressional candidates significantly increased the relationship between anti-Muslim sentiments and Americans' preferences for Republican congressional candidates. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for American politics in the Trump era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Barack Obama is considered by many to be the communicational descendent of President John F. Kennedy, and his 2009 inaugural speech stands testimony to this bold, yet justifiable assertion. Just like his predecessor, Barack Obama managed to inspire the masses through the charisma and intelligence of his acts of communication. He was uniquely gifted, not only with an almost uncanny ability to inspire his base voters, but to also reach across the aisle and expound new-fangled hopes for social and national reconciliation. The generation of discourse, through political contextualisation is based on the exploitation of social impact resources in order to achieve the objectives of socio-political power. Political harmonisation cannot take place outside the spheres of social communication based on the politicization and polemics of discursive paradigms. The connection between language structures and vectors of political ideology derives from the perception of language as a platform for communication and achievement of functional campaign objectives. Each political image discourse is generated based on this paradigm of exploiting the linguistic structural functionality by loading it with ideological significance and persuasive force in the psycho-ideological meaning of the term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referring to the mainstream studies based on the personalization’s hypothesis, which positively evaluates signals of dominance shown by leaders, the analysis of Obama’s rhetoric stays a relevant exception. His risky recall, during his political talks, of his social difficulties as a child of a mixed couple was in fact one of the more surprising aspects of his success. Nevertheless, reactions to his autobiographical sharing were scarcely explored. Based on the idea that these self-disclosures signal his responsivity toward the audience of low social condition and can, therefore, be defined as a sign of humility, this research aims to test if coherence between Obama’s words and his facial expressions of contempt, due to the seriousness of social injustices endured in his childhood, may influence the receivers’ perception of such unexpected communication. Before reading a brief autobiographical sharing taken from a “Back-to-school” speech, a highly ritualized monolog the US President addresses each year to students, 175 Italian participants were presented with a photo of Obama displaying either an expression of contempt (taken from the video of the speech) or a neutral expression. Comparisons between self-assessments of perceptions and reactions of participants assigned to the two experimental conditions show that a facial expression of contempt, coherent with words describing his school difficulties, has been crucial for perceiving this humble political discourse as authentic and not as a simple socially desirable posturing. More studies seem to be needed, however, to understand how humble speech could enhance the positive face of leaders or backfire against them.

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in conceptualising the political nature of human rights as well as intense debate over the precise nature of Western biases in the whole project. Spurred by the fresh renewal of radical theory, a growing body of literature explores the role that racialized power hierarchies have played in the human rights project through the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine. Drawing from critical human rights scholarship, this article explores the way human rights have been employed as a legitimising discourse for justifying military intervention in Libya. In doing so, it illustrates the Eurocentric conceptualisation of power, power hierarchies and subjectivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using corpus linguistics analysis techniques, this study compares salient lexical and phraseological features of the political discourse of Barrack Obama and Donald Trump to reveal the presidents' individual linguistic styles and preferred discursive themes. For this purpose, the WordSmith Tools software is used to extract frequency wordlists, keyword lists and clusters from two corpora of political speeches, and select the most frequent units for further identification of their patterns of use and function. The findings show that the speakers convey their intent to the listeners relying on their own idiolects. Differences are found in thematic concerns and in the use of those items that figure high in both corpora, building the image of Obama as a serious, objective and organized speaker, and that of Trump, as emotion-driven, subjective and fraternizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review essay examines three books written by senior former Obama administration members - Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Ben Rhodes. It highlights how the authors manage to present many of the Obama administration's internal debates, as well as reveal the limitations of its foreign policy.

This paper aims to develop the study of remote warfare's constitutive "remoteness." It proposes a novel definition of remoteness as the degree of the American public's socio-psychological detachment from the realities of political violence fought at a physical distance from the continental United States, as mediated through spectatorship of the use of military force. The remoteness of remote warfare has physical, psychological, and social properties. We argue that it exists on a continuum subject to change over time and should not be approached as a fixed condition measured solely by the physical distance separating combatants involved in armed fighting or as the use of various weapons technologies. The numerous dynamics associated with the remoteness of remote warfare are illustrated through an examination of American military intervention in Libya during Obama's presidency. From the height of the 2011 NATO intervention in the country onwards, US military operations in Libya became more "remote" for the American public. Whilst other contextual factors contributed toward this outcome, we argue that the diminished spectacle surrounding the 2016 Operation Odyssey Lightning helps explain the American public's increasing remoteness from military intervention in Libya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Rush Limbaugh's efforts to tribalize American politics through his racially divisive, falsehood-ridden portrayal of President Obama. By playing and preying on white anxiety, the host laid the groundwork for the election of a president who essentially adopted his view of the Obama presidency. Limbaugh's rhetoric about Obama serves as a case study whereby the most influential part of the conservative media during those years represents the whole. "How did we get here?" is the essential question right now in American politics. How did we go from a society that relatively easily elected Barack Obama twice to one that, popular vote loss aside, elected Donald Trump, and came within a small popular vote shift in three states from doing so again in 2020? Analyzing how Limbaugh ginned up white racial anxiety about a Black president helps us understand the rise of Trump, who began his White House campaign by serving as the nation's birther-in-chief and who, in his reaction to the white nationalist terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, to name just one example, demonstrated his reliance on white identity politics. As Jamelle Bouie wrote: "You can draw a direct line to the rise of Trump from the racial hysteria of talk radio—where Rush Limbaugh, a Trump booster, warned that Obama would turn the world upside down." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between domestic politics and foreign policy has recently grasped a great deal of scholarly as well as public attention. The existing literature primarily focuses on a host of domestic actors--the president, the legislature, the media, public opinion, interest groups and political parties--and how they connect with the making of foreign policy. This paper introduces a new angle--the impact of electoral cycles on foreign policy. When politicians mull over dramatic foreign policy breakthroughs, they consider how the timing of policy achievements can help their political standing. Of particular importance to the effect of political timing is the election cycle, which presidents and lawmakers strategically consider and yet, cannot arbitrarily change in representative democracies. In this paper, I give special attention to the post-midterm election period in the United States when the sitting president attempts to make a dramatic comeback from a political setback. The three historical case studies involve the U.S. normalization of relations with former adversaries, namely China, Vietnam, and Cuba. The context of American politics provides for a convenient experimental backdrop by which politicians face elections every other year with presidential contests every four years and congressional elections in between. Dealing with such politics of time, this article offers analytical analogies while not necessarily setting out to prove causal mechanisms. This firstcut research attempts to shed a new light on the way election strategy and foreign policy are linked in representative democracies and global communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This article sheds light on the way narratives translate into policy outcomes and enable foreign policy change. How is it that narratives shape foreign policy change? The analysis focuses on the public discursive strategy employed during the US Congress debate over the 60-day review period of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This article intends to contribute to the literature on policy narratives in International Relations (IR). I argue that foreign policy decisions are framed in a manner that seeks to ensure their supremacy in the context of a process of political contestation of meaning and of attempts to deconstruct and delegitimise alternative narratives.

This article explores how American presidents retell and interpret the so-called "First Thanksgiving." It offers analysis of the 20 presidential Thanksgiving proclamations issued from 2001 to 2020, situating them within the long evolution of the holiday. The specific focus is on how Bush, Obama, and Trump spoke of God, Pilgrims, Indians, and the enduring "spirit" of the First Thanksgiving. This analysis gives a glimpse into contemporary popular understandings and political uses of Thanksgiving and its imagined roots—and how those understandings and uses contrast with those of previous generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American history has often witnessed a "Pendulum Effect" in consideration of the nation's own past. That is, attitudes swing from one interpretive pole to the opposite, in this case for interpretations of the Plymouth Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and "the first Thanksgiving." The articles in this special issue try to avoid those extremes, but while still treating fairly and with sharp moral scruples, the events of four centuries ago and their contemporary legacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores US foreign policy discourse surrounding the rise of ISIS, from 2014 to 2016. Specifically, it asks how Obama constructed ISIS as a threatening Other at this time. This research responds to a gap in the literature concerning official Western discourses on ISIS violence, and partially fills this by tracing the formation of US foreign policy narratives and exploring how this drew from existing discourses and older Orientalist tropes. Conducting a discourse analysis of official statements, this paper shows how Obama modified his language to elevate the level of the threat in official discourse. It argues that he achieved this by drawing upon longstanding racialised and Orientalist archives of knowledge, effectively resituating the terrorist Other within a more markedly Orientalist discourse. Finally, the article concludes that by (re)producing the traditional Orientalist character of the barbarian as an existential threat to a Eurocentric idea of Western civilisation, Obama made possible an approach to intervention that prioritised air power, targeted assassinations and international cooperation to defend the "civilised" world. This had the effect of stigmatising Muslim communities who were left occupying a discursive space between the civilised West and the barbaric ISIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on theoretical studies of foreign policy changes, particularly with regard to approaches for decision-making and restructuring, this article argues that the Barack H. Obama's strategic change in U.S. policy toward Iran was based on the notion of the failure of previous action and the threat of the Iranian nuclear program, even though it was limited by challenges along three axes throughout the process for achieving a solution for some issues on the agenda, especially the nuclear question. This situation explains Trump's reversal of the advances: Trump worked in an inverse direction regarding some of Obama's policies. The author's theoretical contribution is the expansion of the analysis beyond the phase in which the change was decided, to clarify its limitations and possibilities for consolidation, based on outlining the interactions among promoting actors, the receiving subject, and those who resisted. This approach is useful since it takes into consideration the notion of promoting change and resistance, which is pertinent for illustrating the challenge that Joe R. Biden will face for his Iran policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle East is one of the most volatile geopolitical hotspots in the world. US administration approach towards the region is crucial for geopolitical relations between great powers, regional stability, moreover projects leverages and friction for political developments far beyond its geographical definition. Main research objective takes a comparative prospective between administrations of Barack Obama and Donald Trump and their approaches towards the region. Key hypothesis is that approach of Donald Trump differs from the one of Barack Obama. Sub-hypothesis is: was US influence in the Middle East more profound and sinewy, during Obama administration and his “universal liberalism” - theoretical approach, or Trump administration Hobbesian realism, zero-sum and “make the job done” is more potent for new geopolitical constellation of power. Further, autocratic dictators or Islamist forces, is democracy in the Middle East increasing or decreasing US influence in the region. This article determines effects of how different theoretical, personal and operational dynamics influence political developments on multiple levels. Identifies vectors and modality of US relations with key countries in the region during both administrations. Analysis in this article lies in the realist school of thought in international politics and uses comparative methods of Comparative politics in political science.

The overarching premise of the paper is the idea that Barack Obama’s discursive strategies used in connection with the Armenian genocide in the annual commemoratory Statements could be considered “evasionist” because of the omission of the term ‘genocide’ and its substitution with the semi-official neologism of ‘Meds Yeghern’, transliteration of the Armenian name of the 1915 genocide. Such evasionist discourse in presidential statements avoids unambiguous assessments and expressions, thereby catering to recipients with different political attitudes and expectations. By analyzing different connotative and meta-linguistic mechanisms of taboo in modern political discourse, we show how Obama radically transforms the semantic principles of his predecessors’ discourse, maintaining identical goal-setting characteristics. It is argued that the transliteration of the Armenian name of the genocide can mean “everything and nothing” - for the Armenian audience, it implies full validation of their viewpoint and language, while for the rest of the world, it is only a meaningless sign. The paper demonstrates that the linguistic and semiotic resources that make up Barack Obama’s discourse on the Armenian genocide are based on intentional ambiguity and ambivalent interpretational strategies where intertextual linkages replace referential semantics. A hermeneutic approach appears to be the most adequate instrument for interpretation of such types of discourse, i.e. an interpreter is authorized to explicate inter-textual meanings and messages, which are implicitly incorporated within the text.

La société contemporaine connaît une évolution rapide par rapport aux technologies de collecte, de traitement et de stockage de l’information. Ces évolutions génèrent des données toujours plus nombreuses, des traitementsde plus en plus automatisés, complexes et rapides. L’exploitation de ces masses de données crée de nouvelles connaissances, de nouveaux services et de nouveaux comportements de la société. La terminologie utilisée pour décrire ces phénomènes est souvent «Big data ».Cet article expose de ce fait, une revue de littérature approfondie sur le système Big data, ainsi que son exploitation pour améliorer la relation électeur-politique. Le cas des élections présidentielles d’Obama est aussi mis en détail. Les processus d’analyse des données du Big data sont aussi présentés et une chaîne de valeur virtuelle pour l’exploitation du Big data pour créer de la valeur est proposée.

In this article, I focus on a subset of Obama's foreign policy views, namely his beliefs about the appropriate circumstances under which the United States should engage in armed conflict. I argue that the Iraq war served as a formative event in the development of Obama's worldview. He derived distinct lessons from this policy failure, leading him to articulate a restrictive set of conditions that should be met before the United States considered intervening in the internal politics of another nation, absent a direct threat to national security. I undertake a detailed examination of two case studies – the administration's debates leading to the 2011 intervention in Libya and the decision not to intervene in Syria in 2013 – and demonstrate how the lessons of Iraq shaped Obama's policy choices at critical junctures in the deliberations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decade ago, presidential candidate Barack Obama called for "sustainable democracy promotion" and pledged to double US investment on the intersection of development and democracy. This article, a follow-up on a similar one published early in the Obama Administration, looks at the rhetoric, policies, initiatives, spending, and outcomes of the Obama Administration's democracy promotion efforts, with a special focus on the greater Middle East following Obama's June 2009 Cairo speech extolling democracy and democratic institutions. The data suggest that despite the rhetoric, few new programs were initiated, some existing programs were allowed to wither and that the status of the world is less free and less democratic than it was at the beginning of the Obama presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the way narratives translate into policy outcomes and enable foreign policy change. How is it that narratives shape foreign policy change? The analysis focuses on the public discursive strategy employed during the US Congress debate over the 60-day review period of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This article intends to contribute to the literature on policy narratives in International Relations (IR). I argue that foreign policy decisions are framed in a manner that seeks to ensure their supremacy in the context of a process of political contestation of meaning and of attempts to deconstruct and delegitimise alternative narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper tries to critically analyse the Self/Other representation by Obama and McCain in the American 2008 electoral campaign relying on the fundamental triangulation of discourse, cognition and society (van Dijk, 1998, 2001). This research anchors on the mental processes which link text production and text comprehension models to explicit text and talk products as well as to social and political pragmatic phenomena to study the two American candidates’ electoral marketing of the hope-maker Self against the hope-destructor Other. The data is composed of two speeches: the September 04, 2008 Acceptance Speech of McCain as a U.S. Senator from Arizona and the Republican presidential nominee, and Obama’s speech of October 15, 2008: Remarks of Senator Barack Obama Londonderry, NH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three new Neotropical land planarians (Platyhelminthes, Tricladida, Geoplaninae) from the Brazilian Atlantic forest are described. Obama apiguara Oliveira, Almeida & Carbayo sp. nov. presents glandular fossae opening through dorsal epithelium, a structure not documented previously among land flatworms. Paraba tata Bolonhezi, Lago-Barcia & Carbayo sp. nov., is characterized by a prostatic vesicle horizontal with an inconspicuous bifurcate portion, a penis papilla as long as male atrium and a female genital duct projected from the postero-dorsal section of the female atrium. The third new species is distinctive in the extraordinarily thick muscle surrounding the prostatic vesicle, a finger-shaped penis papilla, and a dilated female genital cavity. These attributes stands the species apart from all members of Geoplaninae and Piima ata Carbayo gen. et sp. nov. is proposed.