Constituting "The People": National Identity Under William H. Taft and Richard M. Nixon

This project is focused on the long-term constitutive elements of presidential discourse; in other words, how rhetoric helps frame and determine national identity. Seemingly innocuous, and appearing in both ceremonial and policy addresses, presidential language concerning national identity helps shape the context, and thus sets the terms for more substantive, issue-laden debates. While one cannot measure the impact of this type of rhetoric in terms of specific issues and time frames, its influence is apparent in a broader and more diffuse perspective. This research compares the public rhetoric of presidents William H. Taft and Richard M. Nixon specifically in terms of their definitions of national identity. Both Republicans, albeit with very different political contexts and time periods, exhibited marked similarities in their strategies for defining the American polity, particularly with respect to their view of the president as the national representative, the idea that the nation is a unified whole, the belief that the nation follows the greatest good for the greatest number, the belief that each citizen occupies a natural place in the hierarchy of American society, and finally, the conviction that liberty is the most important foundational value of the country. The evidence suggests that rhetorical conceptions of national identity are important over time in the United States. Enjoying a broad audience, the president has the ability to shape national debate according to which groups and issues he includes or excludes from the polity.     

Here We Go Again: Presidential Elections and the National Media

The fear of death is a major preoccupation in the West. This is not surprising given the debt we owe to Hobbes, who encourages this fear and makes it a central feature of his account of human nature. Rousseau, in contrast, wishes to reduce this fear as much as possible. Amour propre and the humanity Rousseau encourages are incompatible with excessive concern for self-preservation. This accounts for his antipathy to doctors and the medical arts. Rousseau, through his presentation of Emile and the savage, initially claims that the fear of death is unnatural and that humans should take a stoic stance toward it and all human attachments that lead to our "feeling death twice." A closer reading reveals that humans always have an awareness of death and that modern humans cannot entirely avoid these attachments. We can, however, avoid making preservation our highest goal, and this is essential to our happiness and ability to have compassion for others.     

Spatial Analysis and Economic Development

This section is open for comments and debate on articles published in Development and Change , as well as for short reports, notes, views and reviews on relevant issues of development.     

RURAL SUBSISTENCE,MIGRATION, AND URBANIZATION: THE PRODUCTION,DESTRUCTION, AND REPRODUCTION OF CHEAP LABOUR IN THE WORLD MARKET ECONOMY*

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