VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Caraccioli, Mauro J."

Browsing by Author "Caraccioli, Mauro J."

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Becoming Otherwise: Sovereign Authorship in a World of Multiplicity
Taylor, Benjamin Bradley (Virginia Tech, 2018-06-08)
This thesis explores the theory and practice of sovereignty. I begin with a conceptual analysis of sovereignty, examining its theological roots in contrast with its later influence in contestations over political authority. Theological debates surrounding God’s sovereignty dealt not with the question of legitimacy, which would become important for political sovereignty, but instead with the limits of his ability. Read as an ontological capacity, sovereignty is coterminous with an existent’s activity in the world. As lived, this capacity is regularly limited by the ways in which space is produced via its representations, its symbols, and its practices. All collective appropriations of space have a nomos that characterizes their practice. Foucault’s account of “biopolitics” provides an account of how contemporary materiality is distributed, an account that can be supplemented by sociological typologies of how city space is typically produced. The collective biopolitical distribution of space expands the range of practices that representationally legibilize activity in the world, thereby expanding the conceptual limits of existents and what it means for them to act up to the borders of their capacity, i.e., to practice sovereignty. The desire for total authorial capacity expresses itself in relations of domination and subordination that never erase the fundamental precarity of subjects, even as these expressions seek to disguise it. I conclude with a close reading of narratives recounting the lives of residents in Chicago’s Englewood, reading their activity as practices of sovereignty which manifest variously as they master and produce space.
Creating a Pedagogy of the Full Self: Being and Inviting Full Selves Into Academia
Brimmer, Casey Anne (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-31)
Being and inviting full selves into academia is about marginalized and minoritized academics, teachers, and students investing in marginalized academics, teachers, and students. This autoethnographic and qualitative interview-based research starts to re-/co-author a new kind of academia; an academia based on care and consent which uplifts instead of tears down, and which centers crip, feminist, and queer justice.
Culinary Man
Fallon, Jordan Keats (Virginia Tech, 2023-03-27)
This dissertation offers an exploration of the field of normative subjectivity circulated within western fine dining traditions. I use the notion of "normative subjectivity" which derives from the work of Michel Foucault. Foucault's emphasis on the use of disciplinary repetition to mold, circumscribe, and modulate the conduct of subjects informs my own argument that fine dining spaces feature a normative regime of subjectivity centered on the hegemonic governance of a figure which I call "Culinary Man." This phrase follows from Sylvia Wynter's account of "the overrepresentation of Man," which describes the colonial field of subjectivity which revolves around a normatively white, male, and European figure of authority. Drawing from these sources, this dissertation seeks to give a theoretical analysis of the governing relationship between the chef (who embodies Culinary Man) and the fine dining brigade (the organizational unit of labor within commercial kitchens). As I argue, Culinary Man deploys a heterogeneous set of disciplinary discourses and practices which have the effect of consolidating monopolies on epistemic authority and governance. Each position within the brigade's hierarchy is subject to distinct, though related, disciplinary practices. Thus, several chapters seek to identify the specific practices pertinent to each brigade subject, while also illuminating how they fit together as a coherent hegemonic project. Additionally, a genealogy, in the style of Sylvia Wynter, is carried out to illuminate points of variance as well as continuity within the figure of Culinary Man. While the bulk of the dissertation seeks to carry out a discursive analysis of Culinary Man's disciplinary regime, there are also moves toward alternative projects which do not replicate the brigade form. The concluding chapters seek to identify where extant modes of resistance or alternative forms of culinary organization may hold the potential to move beyond the hegemonic overrepresentation of Culinary Man.
Cynical Futurities: A Critical Methodological Intervention Toward a Cynical Geography
Ramnath, Leah A. (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-14)
In this dissertation, I disentangle the Cynical figure – one who is capable of confronting structures of power by speaking truth to power – within a Westernized, Euro-centric discourse that authorizes the Cynic as an exceptionally powerful political subjectivity. Heeding the words of Sylvia Wynter, "…the Jester's role in the pursuit of human knowledge alternates with the Priest's role—transforming heresies into new orthodoxies, the contingent into modes of the Absolute." I recover the Cynic, once sutured to a distinctly Foucauldian discursive tradition to argue Black and Brown women function as contemporary Cynics using largely a Black Feminist theoretical framework. Drawing on biomythographies written by Black and Brown women, I future a Cynical discursive tradition in which the cynic is known by a different name.
The Democratic Kaleidoscope in the United States: Vanquishing Structural Racism in the U.S. Federal Government
Ryan, Mary Kathleen (Virginia Tech, 2019-04-04)
This dissertation is broadly concerned with the relationship between democracy and race in the United States federal government. To analyze this problem, I rely on archival research from the 1967-8 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (commonly known as the Kerner Commission, after chairperson Governor Otto Kerner) to examine how the discussion and management of hundreds of so-called "race riots" in the summer of 1967 both challenges civil disobedience and embodies structural racism. Employing a content analysis of the final 425-page Kerner Commission government report, I assess the categorization, labeling, and language used to describe and document the hundreds of "race riots" and related state violence through acts of police misconduct that engulfed the country in the summer of 1967. I rely heavily on the report and background research itself, as well as major books related to race riots and presidential commissions, such as Anthony Platt's 1971 The Politics of Riot Commissions and Steven Gillon's 2018 Separate and Unequal. I incorporate theories of exit and the entitlement to rights advanced in literature by scholars like Jennet Kirkpatrick, James C. Scott, and Hannah Arendt. This dissertation is concerned with the relationship between morality and civic participation in democratic politics. I analyze Christopher Kutz's book Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age to delve into the ramifications of democracy and US citizenship being considered a kind of "collective project" and further contemplate what obligations and implications exist for citizens in US democracy against racial injustice. Since the Kerner Commission coincided with the rise of "law and order" politics in the nation's political vernacular, it represents a unique opportunity to witness an ideological shift toward a Garrison state and neoliberal ethos, both of which undermine the country's espoused democratic values, resting on the grammar of equality and justice for all. The Kerner Commission can provide valuable lessons in studies of political domination that remain pertinent to overcoming oppression and injustice today.
The Discursive Construction of National Security Threats from 2001-2018
Stieper, Erica Marie (Virginia Tech, 2018-06-29)
This thesis seeks to explain the discursive construction of national security threats facing the United States from 2001-2018. The driving argument is that the nation's perception of threats and conceptualization of itself are vulnerable to Presidential rhetoric. Presidents convey threats through rhetorical frameworks, a simplified means to present a manipulated perception of reality to a wider audience, which intentionally provoke reactions from the nation to garner consensus towards executive decision-making. Presidents apply frames from prior administrations as well as new frames to define adverse states, organizations, groups of people, etc., and to justify disciplinary practices, military action, or policy implementation against threats. Primarily, they portray threats as the binary opposite of the American national identity to reinforce the country's legitimacy in national security decision-making. This discourse influences how the public internalizes major issues facing the nation and triggers emotions that can either unite or divide the national identity. This research maps variation among the rhetorical frameworks and strategies of President George W. Bush, President Barack Obama, and President Donald J. Trump to evaluate: how national security threats are constructed, how the nation interprets threats, and the resulting social and political effects.
Encountering Agency with Decolonial Thought, New Materialism, and The Vegetarian
Eggleston, Julia Dale (Virginia Tech, 2019-04-16)
In this thesis, I bring into conversation two political theoretical frameworks -- decolonial thought and new materialism – with the South Korean novella The Vegetarian. I suggest that the novella, especially through its protagonist, performs a form of agency which calls for a reading that hinges not on the pursuit of definitive analysis but on the recognition of a personal, affective interaction with violent status quo sensibilities. I demonstrate that there exist understandings of agency within decolonial thought and new materialism which could be attuned to this call. I suggest a method that relies upon two thinkers in these frameworks for reading the novella, and after reading the novella through this method and transparently reflecting on my own role in these texts' encounter, I demonstrate that this way of simultaneously reading the novella and the theoretical texts has the capacity to affirm the open and uncertain mutual changes that happen at their encounter.
Fútbol, Politics, and Corruption
Orjales, Andres Penovi (Virginia Tech, 2020-06-18)
This thesis explores how football (soccer) is used as a tool to promote corruption within political and economic institutions in Latin America and Europe. By drawing on international political and economic policies and analyzing work that theorizes how neoliberalism is not only an outside force that highly influences the state, but also shapes power relationships in society that are procreated by every day economic actions of the working class, this research aims to provide a more theoretically informed perspective on global politics. This thesis also examines how entrepreneurial endeavors can lead to relations of exploitation, extraction and economic dispossession in broader political society. More specifically, it analyses neoliberalism in Argentina and Germany through the perspective of state power, informal economies, and international migration. Lastly, this research portrays the mindset of Argentine and German politicians over the last century by analyzing the actions of the elites within the football clubs and organizations under the guise of entrepreneurship.
The Greater Sage-grouse in Wyoming: A Technonatural Study
Stubberfield, Alexander Thomas (Virginia Tech, 2020-01-15)
This dissertation examines the operation of neoliberal environmentality through the instrumentalization of the Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) in Wyoming. It treats technological interventions within environmental construction as generating biotic-machinic entanglements termed technonature. I present the formation and operation of the Wyoming Conservation Exchange as a case study of technonatural territorialization connected to global trona and hydrocarbon commodity flows. The theoretical framework elaborates how "the environment" is constructed and governed through tactical instrumental deployments connected to technocratic management allowing economically powerful actors to inscribe their desires within Wyoming's landscape, politics and biota as a function of environmental security related to commodity development. The question motivating this work is "Whose environment is the Environmental Defense Fund defending?" The Greater Sage-grouse has become an object of U.S. Federal environmental governance since the late 1990's. It has experienced significant population declines due to anthropogenic disturbance and habitat loss through industrial action across its range. Wyoming's Sagebrush Steppe contains 37.5% of the remaining range wide population. The grouse was listed as a candidate species under the 1973 U.S. Endangered Species Act triggering responses from Federal, State, and international wildlife management agencies, as well as environmental non-governmental organizations. Wyoming could lose nearly a quarter of its surface should Federal regulations require the designation of critical sage-grouse habitat. Governor Dave Freudenthal signed Executive Order 2008-2 into law in response to the regulatory threat to Wyoming's hydrocarbon and mineral based economy. The grouse, in response was de-listed as a candidate species in 2015 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. EO 2008-2 established the Wyoming Core Area Strategy as a statewide conservation umbrella and laid the framework for a habitat mitigation economy allowing industrial activity to continue within sage-grouse habitat. This incentivized the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to test a market-based instrument – a habitat exchange – within Wyoming. The Greater Sage-grouse is a test species as it is highly sensitive to changes in its environment and this dissertation examines how the habitat mitigation economy advanced by EDF is drawing the grouse into global commodity networks as a territorialization process for global flows of hydrocarbons and minerals. At stake is the ability to write the history of the species, land, and the global environment as EDF develops conservation technologies prioritizing flows critical to the hydrocarbon environment through the technology of the Wyoming Conservation Exchange.
Has Neoliberalism Affected American Civil Liberties? Examining the Criminal Justice System and the Welfare State
Berlinghoff, Maddison Brooke Kapua'Ena (Virginia Tech, 2021-05-28)
Neoliberalism once started as an economic theory but overtime has developed into an arm of state social control. This thesis asks if neoliberal economic policies have affected civil liberties in the United States and sets out to understand this relationship in several ways. Firstly, by investigating the shift from Keynesianism to market fundamentalism. Secondly, by evaluating the growth in the prison industrial complex. Third, by asking questions of growing social insecurity from an increasingly privatized social safety net. This thesis explored four hypotheses, each one finding support. The overall argument is that the economic sphere and the free market has obstructed the social sphere. Finally, the thesis concludes with a brief discussion of toxic individualism as it relates to socialization after a long period of extreme market privatization.
Living on the Edge of Burnout: Defamiliarizing Neoliberalism Through Cyberpunk Science Fiction
Alphin, Caroline Grey (Virginia Tech, 2019-04-01)
A dominant trend in cyberpunk scholarship draws from Fredric Jameson's diagnosis of postmodernism as the logic of late capitalism, using Jameson's spatial pastiche, schizophrenic temporality, and waning of affect, along with Jameson's characterization of Baudrillard's simulacrum to interpret postmodern cultural artifacts. For many cultural critics, the city of cyberpunk is thoroughly postmodern because parallels can be drawn between the cyberpunk city and the postmodern condition. However, very little work has considered the ways in which cyberpunk can defamiliarize the necro-spatial and necro-temporal logic of neoliberalism. This project moves away from more traditional disciplinary aesthetic methods of analyzing power and urban systems, such as interpretation and representation. And, it problematizes the biopolitical present in three different ways. First, by weaving in and out of an analysis of the narratives, discourses, and spatio-temporalities of cyberpunk and neoliberalism, I seek to produce epistemological interferences within these genres/disciplines, and thus, to disrupt the conceptual and lived biopolitical status-quo of late-capitalism. The goal is to open the door for discomfort with and a critical awareness of the necrotic conditions of competition by highlighting the fictive nature of neoliberalism. Second, this study problematizes accelerationism as a viable alternative to leftist politics and suggests in the end that accelerationism is a form of neoliberal resilience. It does this through an analysis of the biohacker that reframes this subject in terms of accelerationism and the logic of intensity. I argue that the biohacker is the accelerationist subject Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek advocate for in their "Accelerationist Manifesto," suggesting that this accelerationist subject is, in the end, a neoliberal subject that fits easily within the conditions of competition. This study argues that the biohacker in its numerous forms reflects an underlying pure neoliberalism at work within accelerationism and its neoliberal governmentalities. I suggest that far from being an alternative to leftist politics, accelerationism may further the goals of neoliberalism in its desire to accelerate to a purified market space. And, finally, this study works towards offering a biopolitics that theorizes death in terms of ordinariness and suggests that biopolitics is still a useful analytic within neoliberalism. In other words, Foucault's biopolitics can do more than theorize a genealogy of biological racism and genocide. Rather than advocate for moving beyond biopolitics, this study argues instead that neoliberal biopolitics can still be understood in terms of Foucault's analytic, and that perhaps, we need to disentangle Foucault's work from Achille Mbembe's "Necropolitics."
Mare Imperium: the Evolution of Freedom of the Seas Discourse in U.S. Foreign Policy
Donahue, Connor Patrick (Virginia Tech, 2020-10-07)
This dissertation conducts a genealogy of freedom of the seas discourse in United States foreign policy in order to problematize the contemporary representation lying at the heart of American political-military strategy in the Western Pacific. This project aims to accomplish two goals. First, this project aims to show that freedom of the seas is not an enduring historical principle consistently championed by the United States, as is often claimed in contemporary governmental publications. Rather, it shows that the current understanding is a recent phenomenon that emerged after the Second World War. By highlighting the contingency of the contemporary understanding of freedom of the seas, this work seeks to show that such discourse is not a necessary foundation on which to place American political-military strategy. The second objective of this genealogical analysis is to show that the contemporary freedom of the seas discourse in U.S. foreign policy is not an altruistic principle championed on behalf of the global community, but rather facilitates American control over the global ocean space. By showing that freedom of the seas is a mechanism of sea control, this work aims to show that in an era of maritime great power competition, strategies predicated upon the discourse are more dangerous than would otherwise appear. Together, this genealogical analysis, and the two goals that are made possible by it, will make a substantive contribution to the critical strategic studies literature, in conjunction with the wider critical security studies literature, by showing that American political-military strategy in the South China Sea can and should be reconceptualized.
The Modern U.S. Federal Reserve: To What Extent is Transparency Counterproductive and Politicizing?
Moore, Elizabeth J. (Virginia Tech, 2019-12)
This thesis examines the extent to which institutional transparency is counterproductive and potentially politicizing within the U.S. Federal Reserve system. It exemplifies a Venn diagram intersection of political and economic theory – and given the meaningful change in behavior at the Fed – to some extent organizational theory as well. This political economy orientation may be illustrated by providing a historical context – and then addressing the relevant catalysts for change: legislative action, financial crises, and the increase in social media technology. In terms of a “broader view,” these changes have occurred against a backdrop of significant changes in the application of Keynesian theories. As a result, this thesis defines modern transparency at the Federal Reserve, including its benefits and potential drawbacks, by connecting the changes in policies and procedures over the last quarter century - and by showing the impact of the evolution of modern New Keynesian interventionist programs within this new environment. The conclusions shown the New Keynesian coincidental contributions to modern interventionalist policies. But the benefits that come from improved transparency have opened the door to unintended consequences – and the main takeaway is the potential for political bias among bankers and the time inconsistencies that come from short-term modifications to otherwise long-term problems. The “secrets of the temple” are no longer secrets…but Greider would agree that the concentration of power and political influence remains the same.
No School Left Behind: Oakland Unified School District Discipline Reform and Policy Implementation Case Study
Segura Betancourt, Maria Alejandra (Virginia Tech, 2023-06-22)
This paper critically evaluates school discipline reform policy and implementation by California in the Oakland Unified School District after the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights investigation. It demonstrates that policy implementation at the school level is equally as important as policy building and reform at the state-and district level. The Oakland Unified School district was subject to many reforms at the district level through change in state-wide legislation, and school board reform after the investigation concluded with several recommendations for the district. This provides a unique opportunity to study policy implementation at the school-level to understand how school environment and discretion may affect reform implementation. As research surrounding the effects of punitive school discipline continue to support alternative discipline practices, many states and school-districts have begun to implement its own reform. However, school discretion on how these policies are implemented call for researchers to focus on the school-level of policy implementation. This thesis is motivated to create an understanding in how policy implementation at the state and district level will differ across schools in the same district, focusing on school environment can influence implementation.
The Paradox of Transnational (Neo)Nationalism: Neo-nationalist Entanglements with Capital-"isms" in Modern Poland
Tepper, Madison (Virginia Tech, 2019-02)
The Polish Independence Day march in Warsaw in November 2017 drew a flurry of international media attention for its shocking mass display of far-right nationalism, connections to neo-Nazi groups, and feature of openly racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, and homophobic slogans. However, the dangerously “othering” nationalist ideologies expressed in Poland during this demonstration are far from unique. Over the past 20-30 years, eerily similar nationalist movements have simultaneously emerged across Eastern Europe and the West. Paradoxically, the nation-state has perhaps never had less agency as increasingly global capitalism continues to encroach upon the dominance of the nation itself. I argue that this trend of new nationalist movements indicates a departure from the traditional definitions of nationalism that requires a distinct category, which I refer to as neo-nationalism. In Chapter 1, I differentiate neo-nationalism from conventional understandings of nationalist politics and provide a working definition of neo- nationalism in the twenty-first century. I aim to show that a contextualization of these neo- nationalist movements alongside increasingly global capitalism is essential to understanding the othering natures of neo-nationalist ideologies and their paradoxical nature – both national and transnational, both shocking and entirely banal. I illustrate this by returning to the case of modern Poland, employing a visual rhetorical analysis from a Marxist-feminist perspective in order to demonstrate the manifestations of particular and dangerous dynamics of othering in Polish neo- nationalism. I refer to these dynamics as “capital-isms,” such that they are the “shocking” expression of what are in fact pervasive prejudices brought to the surface by the changing conditions of global capitalism. In Chapter 2, I examine the rhetoric surrounding the Polish Independence Day march in 2017 to highlight the paradoxes and power mechanisms at play in Polish neo-nationalism. I follow with an exploration of the rhetoric employed by the Polish far- right nationalist party, Law and Justice, with particular contextualization with regard to its relationship with the European Union in Chapter 3. Finally, I conclude this thesis by considering the implications of this research for the study of neo-nationalism going forward.
Political Applications of Systems Theory in the Twentieth Century: From Cybernetic Control to Spontaneous Emergence
Glasson, Hannah Gray (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-17)
This dissertation is a realist intellectual history of systems theory in the second half of the twentieth century. Systems theory can be defined as the study of the informatic patterns that are found within a variety of complex phenomena, both natural and social. The science behind systems theory emerged from wartime engineering projects, and was promoted by major philanthropic organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation. Theoretical concepts from the nascent systems sciences, including the subfields of information science, cybernetics, and systems biology, migrated into social science fields including political theory and economics. The social applications of systems theory were heavily promoted by major figures within both America's counterculture, and America's neoliberal revolution. Systems theory injected strong elements of political thinking and political reasoning into natural and social scientific fields alike. The integration of systems theory into natural science fields such as biology was paired with an expanded understanding of the purposes of science. These purposes ranged from the attempt to capture sophisticated, systemic mechanisms of control within life processes, to the attempt to describe the spontaneous, creative, and free self-organization within living systems. Likewise, in economics and the social sciences, systems theory provided an apt conceptual terminology to imagine human society as either an intricately interwoven system of control and coercion, or as a spontaneously organizing source of human freedom. Systems approaches to economics rejected simplistic descriptions of human motivation and behavior, and emphasized the importance of collective processes that do not follow central direction. While Friedrich Hayek is the most well-known economist to utilize systems theory, other less known figures such as Kevin Kelly and George Gilder played a major role in the development of systems based, informatic approaches to social and economic thought. Hayek is often blamed for the development of speculative, systems approaches to economics that minimize the importance of material reality. Contradicting this consensus, I argue that Kelly and Gilder are better exemplars of this speculative rejection of materiality. I also challenge the dominant consensus within political theory scholarship that argues that systems theory can only be understood as a tool and modality of control. Instead, I show that freedom and control co-exist ambiguously in systems theory discourses, and that the lasting appeal and uptake of systems theory within American culture must be interpreted in this light.
Political ecologies of encounter: mapping enclosures and disruptions in food access
Byg, Reed Lauren (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-03)
This study is an examination of the role of community-based food projects in place making and collective futuring efforts. I look specifically at food access projects in Dayton, Ohio, a city I have personal connections to. In this study, I forefront the concepts of relationality, co-creation, ownership, economic (dis)investment, soil systems, and regeneration as they emerge from my fieldwork on food access in Dayton, which consisted of interviews, participant observation, and spatial analysis. My methodology centers on critical mapping which the traces conceptual and material connections that shape food access in Dayton and situate community-based efforts within broader economic and political landscapes. In doing so, I demonstrate how food access can be conceptualized in terms of global contours and local manifestations. I draw on the work of Anna Tsing, Karl Polanyi, Jason Moore and Bikrum Gill, to develop a political ecology of encounter that examines the historical roots and ongoing practices of enclosure as a tactic of governance that shapes human-nature relations in specific ways. I demonstrate how these acts of enclosure bring to the fore certain ecological relations in ways that uphold dominant systems of power, while obfuscating other ecological relations. This allows me to theorize encounters between individuals, communities, and environments as political sites of both impasse and change. I conclude that food (in)access is a feature of the production and management of eco-social relations by governments, communities, and individuals. Thus, in focusing on the eco-social relations and encounters that are fostered through food production, distribution, and consumption, communities can (and are) working to build more socially and ecologically just futures.
Queer: The Creation of Power Structures within Deviancy
Erb, Michael S. (Virginia Tech, 2018-05-30)
Queer theory has a fundamental flaw: queer. This thesis seeks to explore the fractured usages, meanings, and scopes of the term queer to uncover the power structures that have been created within and around the term. Specifically, this thesis analyzes the ways in which academic queer theorists, the university system, and LGBTQ+ groups and activists, in an attempt to make the queer useful, perpetuate limiting definitions of the word queer that create power structures that re-marginalize some queer people. Queer, being a reclaimed slur, is sometimes used to describe members of the LGBTQ+ community. It has recently been adopted by a variety of groups to make the term politically useful. In doing so, the term has developed many, often conflicting, meanings. A term that means everything, however, has very little analytical use. Because of this, attempts to make the term queer useful to have unintended implications that re-marginalize some queer people.
Reagan, Central America and the Human Costs to Waging the Cold War
MacKoul, Matthew John (Virginia Tech, 2021-05-28)
Since the introduction of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States has maintained a sphere of influence in Latin America. This hegemony has yielded beneficial results, such as the Panama Canal, and at times, has caused more harm than good. The later result has been the dominant outcome beginning with 1954 and the Central Intelligence Agency's foray into Guatemala. U.S. foreign policy has enabled or sanctioned actions resulting in human rights abuses. This can be easily viewed through the Reagan Administration's re-ignition of Cold War politics based on realist international relations theory This particular foreign policy blueprint is based on one geo-political thought: Communist Rollback. Due to this, other concerns, such as human rights, were relegated to a lesser priority. The purpose of this thesis is to determine the extent to which U.S. foreign policy undermined human rights in Central America during the decade of the Reagan Administration. By understanding the effects of Reagan's singular focus, this thesis seeks to bring clarity to the deficiencies of current or potentially future foreign policy models. To understand the impact of U.S. foreign policy this thesis will explore three key case countries: Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. These crossroads of policy between the Reagan Administration and their Central American counterparts will dictate decisions made publicly and secretly that will be the impetus of human rights abuses that are still being uncovered thirty years later. What we will discover is that, ultimately, containment policy failed to slow socialism as an alternative to capitalism and democracy in some of these states at the expense of the human rights of native citizens.
The Specter of Liberal Benevolence: Power, Podcasts, and Perpetual Peace
Blankenship, Spencer Edward (Virginia Tech, 2021-12-08)
This thesis attempts to understand how American hegemony is reproduced. Despite heavily criticizing American military expansion, the foreign policy elite still abet the expansion of the American military apparatus. I argue that international liberalism is used to capture the hearts and minds of the professional-managerial class. Specifically, the framings of the democratic peace theory, multilateralism, and international law soften the violent and deleterious interventionist decisions made by the foreign policy elite. Furthermore, these framings are used to academically bolster liberalism and add to their cultural legitimacy and saliency in civil society. By interrogating a podcast made by foreign policy elites, I show how podcasts function as a key site of hegemonic reproduction.

Browsing by Author "Caraccioli, Mauro J."

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