Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The role of the US Congress in the politics of US foreign policy has been studied by many scholars since the Vietnam War. Yet, one could describe this research as predominantly mainstream in nature, and argue that experts of US Congress and foreign policy have become preoccupied by a somewhat narrow set of debates and research agendas. Moreover, the role of the US Congress in the politics of US foreign policy has been situated on the outside edge of many "recent" theoretical approaches – like American Political Development (APD), poststructuralism or feminism – despite the centrality of Congress in the US political system and the fact that those approaches have a lot to say about the US Congress. While Congress is likely to remain an important site for substantive attention for positivist students of American politics and US foreign policy, I argue that bridging the gap between the study of US Congress and more interpretative approaches than those who dominate the fields of International Relations, foreign policy analysis and American Politics is one of the keys to enlarge the set of debates and research questions in the subfield of US Congress and foreign policy, to bring Congress to the attention of new scholars, and to expand our understanding of congressional politics.This paper thus aims at encouraging scholars to identify new ways to study the role of US Congress in the politics of US foreign policy. It uses two case studies as a first step in creating meeting points between "recent" theoretical approaches and the study of US Congress and foreign policy. First, it shows that APD can be useful to shed light on key developments in the history of the US Congress, like the transformation of the influence of the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on US foreign policy since 1945. Secondly, building on the recent works of John Mueller and Richard Jackson on the war on terrorism, it seeks to illustrate how a poststructuralist approach can be used to highlight the importance of members of Congress in the construction/amplification/reproduction of threats to national security. More precisely, this paper takes the cases of Joe Lieberman (D – Connecticut), Henry Hyde (R – Illinois) and John Warner (R – Virginia) to show how congressional "national security intellectuals" deliberately manipulate public anxiety about threats like terrorism and weapons of mass destruction to gain support for extraordinary measures and military action.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: Although now recognized as a vehicle for transmitting ground-floor cultural values, and not merely as an empty display of eloquence, the relationship between epideictic and deliberative rhetoric continues to be underestimated. Speakers have long sensed that praise and blame for those whom we honor can directly imply a particular course of action. Examination of ancient and modern examples of epideictic rhetoric illustrates how rhetors can use rhetoric of praise and blame to advocate a course of action.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, demonstrating a “sameness of differences” in coverage of the candidates in old and new media. In spite of the promise of new media to offer a wide range of new content, an analysis of 1,742 news stories representing 47 news sources from January to May of 2007 showed robust similarities in proportions of coverage given to candidates and parties regardless of media formats. During the “invisible media primary” the media substantially and similarly winnowed the field of candidates across platforms. In the first five months of the election cycle, potentially viable candidates were given very different levels of exposure both within and between parties and most candidates were denied a minimal opportunity to present themselves to the electorate. In the face of a large field—8 Democrats and 12 Republicans—the media concentrated on the two-person Democratic contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and much less on the Republican four-way race. Taken together, coverage of Clinton and Obama alone equaled coverage of the entire Republican field. Turning to the tone of coverage to candidates, we show that internet news sites are more neutral or balanced towards candidates and more similar to cable news than to old media, but even here the differences across platforms is not significantly different. Only cable and radio talk shows depart from the uniformity of media presentation of candidates. The sameness of the cross-media imbalance in amount of coverage both within and between parties can be explained in terms of common news judgments regardless of media platform, the overarching horserace and strategy frames across media, and similar exigencies of newsroom management. We discuss the impact of these campaign coverage patterns for perceptions of media fairness and democratic practice.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, we elaborate a political mediation model of the impacts of social movements on states. We appraise this model by way of examining the influence of the U.S. old-age pension movement of the 1930s on two sets of old-age policy outcomes. One involves the development of Old Age Assistance spending in the states in the wake of the 1935 Social Security Act. A second is an analysis of voting for Social Security Act Amendments in the late 1930s. We address the influence of campaigns led by the Townsend Plan, the main national old-age pension organization, as well as a variety of old-age pension organizations at the state level. We employ both quantitative and formal qualitative methods on issues. In the quantitative analyses, we employ control variables regarding influences on social policy, including the influence of public opinion. Both analyses show influence of the old-age pension organizations on policy outcomes and provide support for the political mediation model.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper assesses both the domestic and international actors that have impacted on the changes in the Turkish health care reforms. More particularly, EU and the international donors play different roles in policy transfer at particular stages.