Tesi sul tema "International rhetoric"

Within political discourse, tropes of ability and disability are rhetorically applied in a way that stigmatizes particular individuals or groups by associating the targets of such rhetoric with preexisting normative perspectives framing able-bodiedness as valuable, and disability as undesirable. By analyzing Brenda Connors’ diagnosis of Putin as having Asperger’s syndrome, I argue the language used in her Pentagon funded report constitutes a form of dis/ableist polemical rhetoric. Incorporating Michel Foucault’s scholarship concerning biopolitics, governmentality, and madness, as well as relevant critical disability studies scholarship, I outline how an instance of polemical discourse can invoke disablist and ablest discourses for polemical rhetoric. Ultimately, I argue that dis/ableist polemical rhetoric outlines the role that categories of ability and disability play in international relations and domestic political discourse, which I suggest has important theoretical implications for political communication, critical disability studies, and Foucault scholarship.

Is anti-China rhetoric an effective strategy in U.S. presidential campaigns? If the answer is Yes, then to what extent does anti-China rhetoric affect them? If the answer is No, then why have so many presidential candidates used anti-China rhetoric in recent campaigns? Is anti-China rhetoric only election-driven? Is it also policy-driven? Do presidential candidates use anti-China rhetoric to seek voter support, as well as propose changes in U.S. foreign policy towards China?

Conventional wisdom and scholars like Robert Sutter suggest that foreign policy has little effect on American presidential elections and anti-foreign rhetoric by presidential candidates does not matter to American foreign policy and foreign relations. In this dissertation, however, I argue the opposite that anti-China rhetoric exercises significant influence on American presidential elections and foreign policy towards China. The dissertation addresses two fundamental questions: 1) what is the effect of anti-China rhetoric on American presidential elections? And 2) what is the effect of anti-China rhetoric on American foreign policy towards China, American public opinion towards China, and U.S.-China relationship? To answer the first question about elections, I focus on televised campaign commercials and statistically estimate the effect of anti-China rhetoric on seeking voter support in the presidential election. The data I examine come from the “Wisconsin Advertising Project” and various election polls in 2008. I answer the second question about foreign policy by exploring the contents of anti-China rhetoric in campaign activities including ads, candidates’ speeches and debates, and public statements about policy towards China and how that rhetoric affects subsequent American foreign policy towards China, as well as public opinion of China and U.S.-China relations. My statistical and qualitative analyses find that airing ads using anti-China rhetoric increases the presidential candidate’s voter support in target states; that the administration is more likely to make tough foreign policies towards China when there is more anti-China rhetoric by presidential candidates; and thirdly, that anti-China rhetoric during the election year negatively affects American opinions of China but produces a positive impact on U.S.-China relations.

McPeek, Samuel E. Bachelor of Arts, Concordia College, Ann Arbor, MI, Spring 1978; Master of Divinity, Concordia Seminary, Spring 1982; Master of Science, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Spring 2007; Doctor of Philosophy, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Summer 2017 Major: English Title of Dissertation: Religious Rhetoric and the Radio: The Sermons of Rev. Dr. Oswald C.J. Hoffmann, International Lutheran Hour Speaker, 1955 - 1985 Dissertation Director: Dr. Keith Dorwick Pages in Dissertation: 199; Words in Abstract: 281 ABSTRACT Rev. Dr. Oswald C.J. Hoffmann served as the speaker of The Lutheran Hour, an internationally broadcast religious radio program, from 1955 until 1988 and as Speaker-Emeritus from 1988 until his death in 2005. As a Lutheran pastor, Hoffmann brought with him almost twenty years of ministry experience as a parish pastor, a college professor, and the first public relations director of the Lutheran Church?Missouri Synod (LCMS), as well as the skills of a gifted preacher. Throughout the three decades that Hoffmann served in this position, he was much more than a voice on the radio and his notoriety extended well beyond the structure of his own denomination; he was well known both nationally and internationally, meeting with and interviewing political leaders, business leaders, celebrities, and dignitaries worldwide. Although Hoffmann was a major religious figure and a popular preacher of the second half of the twentieth century, little scholarship has been conducted on his preaching. The question this dissertation will address is, how is Hoffmann?s preaching distinct amidst the many voices proclaiming the faith? There are two ways in which this question can be addressed: the first is theologically and the second is rhetorically. Theologically, this dissertation will argue that it was Hoffmann?s style of preaching as pastoral care, or Seelsorge (the term used by Luther), that made him an effective radio preacher and furthermore, his preaching exemplified and contributed to the overall tradition of Lutheran homiletics. Rhetorically, however, this dissertation will investigate how Hoffmann keeps his radio audience?s attention against the sonic field in which he preaches. In order to address this question, I will analyze Hoffmann?s sermons using the five canons of rhetoric: Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, and Delivery.

This thesis contributes to the historiography on President Ronald Reagan, political rhetoric, U.S.-Soviet Relations, 1980s politics, and religion in foreign policy. It examines the consistency and purpose of Reagan’s religious and moral rhetoric in an attempt to gain an understanding of Reagan’s rhetoric as it pertained to his Soviet policies. It draws largely from speeches, articles, summit meetings, interviews, personal correspondences, radio broadcasts, press conferences, political insider’s memoirs, and Reagan administration documents that laid out foreign policy strategies for dealing with the Soviet Union.

I argue that throughout his two terms as president, while there was variance over time in some aspects of his rhetoric (i.e., his characterization of the Kremlin), Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric consistently pointed to religion and morality as central aspects of the Cold War and central causes of East-West tensions. He also consistently pointed to the Soviet system as the greatest moral evil facing the world, and his Soviet policies and interactions with Soviet leaders reflected his perception that religion and morality were at the heart of the Cold War and East-West relations. This thesis intends to provide a better understanding of the worldview Reagan presented in his public rhetoric and of the ways his foreign policy actions were, overall, consistent with that worldview. This study defines Reagan’s public rhetoric as a tool of persuasion that sought to reshape public and private perceptions of the East-West relationship, the Cold War, and America’s role in it.

My dissertation, The Rhetorical Work of Soft Power: The U.S.-India 123 Agreement and a Relationship Transformed, broadens and deepens our understanding of soft power diplomacy as a creation of constitutive rhetoric. I perform a rhetorical critique of discourses generated during three years' debate on the U.S.-India 123 Agreement, a watershed moment in bilateral relations. In Chapter 1, I introduce the frames of reference that guided my research, set my project within the literature stream, and lay foundations for my argument.

In Chapter 2, I explore how soft power discourse facilitated India's diplomatic move from outside to inside the nonproliferation regime. I introduce identification and courtship as constructs to explain soft power attraction, presenting narratives of exceptionalism, deliverance and kinship that emerged from discourse. In Chapter 3, I explain the bilateral movement from estranged to engaged as deepened identification and consubstantiation, the achievement of a permanent union. I trace the development of "democracy," "pluralism," and "creativity" as terms of ideological commitment and mutual obligation. I also present two additional narratives, the sojourner narrative, which reconstituted the Indian Diaspora's political identity, and the convergence narrative, which constituted the United States and India as bilateral partners and transformed the U.S.-India 123 Agreement from an idea about nuclear cooperation into the embodiment of a resilient, enduring, and comprehensive partnership. Each narrative drew in substances of identification that reduced recalcitrance, changed perspectives, overcame estrangement, and motivated concerted action.

Chapter 4 outlines benefits of my research for rhetoricians, soft power proponents, and diplomacy specialists. For rhetoricians, I enrich our limited study of diplomatic discourse and generate insight into dramatistic theory and criticism. For soft power theorists, my project as a whole gives explanatory force to soft power as a creation of constitutive rhetoric. The consequent reinterpretation of the telos, processes, and resources of soft power makes soft power attraction more transparent. For the diplomatic corps, I encourage new ways of conceptualizing and talking about diplomatic aims and achievements. Chapter 4 thus frames longer-term objectives to further develop the rhetoric of diplomacy, to undertake theory-building in soft power diplomacy, and to integrate soft power diplomacy with diplomatic tradecraft.

The human rights industry today generates and organizes knowledge about the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iranians. The cultural archive it produces has been used to advance the global North's geopolitical interests and the accumulation of capital and power that leads to human rights abuses in the first place. Use of the human rights framework as a political strategy among Iranian–Americans and other allies acting from across geographic, political, economic, religious and other boundaries is therefore risky. The dangers it introduces should be examined alongside its tactical uses.

This dissertation presents a close analysis of certain observables that make visible "human rights" discourse or activity related to the Islamic Republic of Iran today. It presents an examination of a series of texts that give "human rights" its shape: from academic and journalistic accounts to online data aggregators, film, social media, and related policies. It traces its use by competing actors: from activists and politicians to business leaders and academics. In so doing, the dissertation reveals important political, emotional, intellectual, and socio-economic contestations that arise through use of the human rights framework.

The dissertation sheds light on the motivations and methods of entities that take up the human rights framework as a political strategy. It narrates the relations between observables, revealing the architecture of a human rights "industry" that consumes and produces knowledge about Iranians and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In so doing, this dissertation reveals the vulnerability of the human rights discourse and activities to other projects and finds that the human rights industry motors a form of (neo)Orientalism that should be interrupted if the network of actors around the world that are set up to address violations of "human rights" are to be effective at helping to maintain or uphold the dignity and freedom of Iranians in a sustainable way.