In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States launched an interna... more In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States launched an international war on terrorism defined by military intervention, nation building, and efforts to reshape the politics of the Middle East. As of 2017, however, it has become clear that the American strategy has destabilized the Middle East while doing little to protect the United States from terrorism. After 15 years of considerable strategic consistency during the presidencies of George Bush and Barack Obama, Donald Trump now takes the reins having promised to “bomb the sh**” out of ISIS and “defeat them fast.” At the same time, however, Trump broke sharply in his campaign rhetoric from Republican orthodoxy on Iraq and Afghanistan. Whatever President Trump decides to do, an evaluation of the War on Terror should inform his policies. We argue that the War on Terror failed. This failure has two fundamental — and related — sources. The first is the inflated assessment of the terror threat facing t...
Habitat for Humanity is recognized internationally for enabling lower-income families to achieve ... more Habitat for Humanity is recognized internationally for enabling lower-income families to achieve homeownership and for its use of volunteers toward that goal. But little research has been conducted to assess the impact on families of participating in Habitat's process to homeownership. Developed in partnership with two Habitat affiliates in Southeast Michigan, this research seeks to evaluate the impact of homeownership through individualsメ comparisons of their former and current housing and neighborhoods. The pilot study uses indicators of individual and child well-being, such as health and sense of safety in home and neighborhood, as well as measures of civic involvement and sense of community in difficult neighborhood contexts. Data were collected through surveys and interviews in Detroit and Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti in 2009.
ABSTRACT Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1996... more ABSTRACT Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1996. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. by A. Trevor Thrall. Ph.D.
World theatre is nowadays taken for granted, but its post-War pioneer was the remarkable Peter Da... more World theatre is nowadays taken for granted, but its post-War pioneer was the remarkable Peter Daubeny. This blog post reflects on Daubeny's achievement, particularly his World Theatre Seasons at the Aldwych Theatre. My tour Peter Daubeny's World of Theatre celebrates this achievement with readings from his memoirs 'My World of Theatre' given at some of the theatres he used, including the one where it all started in 1951. http://charnowalks.co.uk/peter-daubeny-world-of-theatre/
Observers of American foreign policy have been worried for years about eroding public support for... more Observers of American foreign policy have been worried for years about eroding public support for international engagement, especially in light of increasing public discontent after nearly two decades of military conflict since 9/11. Low support for international engagement and military intervention among younger Americans, in particular, has led some to worry that the age of American internationalism has passed. There is little agreement, however, about how serious the erosion of public support is and what its causes are.<br><br>Relying on an analysis of seven decades of polling data, we argue that generational effects have slowly reshaped patterns of American foreign policy preferences. Since World War II, Americans have come of age during periods increasingly less conducive to support of military intervention, leading them to adopt worldviews increasingly at odds with those carried by older Americans. As a result, the United States is undergoing a slow-motion changing...
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 15205430709337006, May 1, 2007
The “hegemonic” tradition argues that the president enjoys unparalleled power to manage news and ... more The “hegemonic” tradition argues that the president enjoys unparalleled power to manage news and opinion during war. This approach has dominated political communication literature on war and the media for over a generation. The war with Iraq, however, provides a major challenge to conventional wisdom. We believe that classical propaganda theory provides a useful corrective to the hegemonic perspective and offers a better way to understand the Bush administration&amp;#x27;s propaganda strategy and its impact on public ...
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09636410701547915, Aug 24, 2007
To many scholars, the Bush administration's ability to convince a majority of the public to ... more To many scholars, the Bush administration's ability to convince a majority of the public to favor war with Iraq represents a dangerous failure of the marketplace of ideas. A healthy marketplace, they argue, would have produced a more robust debate over the administration's justifications for war, revealing their weakness. In this paper I argue that these scholars have based their arguments on a poorly specified model of the marketplace of ideas and that Iraq does not represent a failure of the marketplace. Contrary to ...
Abstract: Administration has pursued a propaganda (ie public relations and public diplomacy) stra... more Abstract: Administration has pursued a propaganda (ie public relations and public diplomacy) strategy as a way to resolve opinion disjuncture and paradox at home and abroad. In place of the usual tools of foreign policy: building alliances, engaging allies in policy debate, conducting diplomacy, etc., the Bush Administration approach seeks to use symbols, arguments, and rhetoric to conduct foreign policy and thereby “win the peace.” This paper examines the Bush Administration's approach to “winning the peace” by:(1) ...
Propaganda is situational. This primary aspect of propaganda became apparent to American intellec... more Propaganda is situational. This primary aspect of propaganda became apparent to American intellectuals in the aftermath of World War I, The Great War, which certainly lived up its original name when it came to standardizing the template of war propaganda in modern mass democratic societies. Walter Lippmann, often misremembered as a champion of mass public opinion, was a functionary in the Wilson administration when it created the famously influential Committee on Public Information. CPI is remembered not only as “ ...
The continued rise of entertainment news, the fragmentation of the mass audience, and the increas... more The continued rise of entertainment news, the fragmentation of the mass audience, and the increasing diffusion of digital communications, raises the prospect that celebrities stand poised to become important new gatekeepers of a transformed global public sphere. Thanks in particular to their dominance of social media platforms scholars have found reason to suspect that celebrities will be more successful getting heard about political issues than ever before. On the other hand, the literature on celebrity human rights advocacy remains heavily reliant on anecdotes and case studies. The few quantitative studies suggest that very few celebrities manage to generate attention for human rights causes on the order of Bono, George Clooney, or Angelina Jolie. Thus, though celebrities enjoy huge followings and have the potential to command global attention under certain circumstances, there is also good reason to expect that celebrity impact on foreign affairs and human rights agendas will be limited. More research is needed to investigate the expanding global reach of celebrities, the relationship between politicized celebrities and the media, the conditions under which certain celebrities gain resonance on specific issues, and the strategic efforts NGOs make to leverage celebrity supporters.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States launched an interna... more In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States launched an international war on terrorism defined by military intervention, nation building, and efforts to reshape the politics of the Middle East. As of 2017, however, it has become clear that the American strategy has destabilized the Middle East while doing little to protect the United States from terrorism. After 15 years of considerable strategic consistency during the presidencies of George Bush and Barack Obama, Donald Trump now takes the reins having promised to “bomb the sh**” out of ISIS and “defeat them fast.” At the same time, however, Trump broke sharply in his campaign rhetoric from Republican orthodoxy on Iraq and Afghanistan. Whatever President Trump decides to do, an evaluation of the War on Terror should inform his policies. We argue that the War on Terror failed. This failure has two fundamental — and related — sources. The first is the inflated assessment of the terror threat facing t...
Habitat for Humanity is recognized internationally for enabling lower-income families to achieve ... more Habitat for Humanity is recognized internationally for enabling lower-income families to achieve homeownership and for its use of volunteers toward that goal. But little research has been conducted to assess the impact on families of participating in Habitat's process to homeownership. Developed in partnership with two Habitat affiliates in Southeast Michigan, this research seeks to evaluate the impact of homeownership through individualsメ comparisons of their former and current housing and neighborhoods. The pilot study uses indicators of individual and child well-being, such as health and sense of safety in home and neighborhood, as well as measures of civic involvement and sense of community in difficult neighborhood contexts. Data were collected through surveys and interviews in Detroit and Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti in 2009.
ABSTRACT Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1996... more ABSTRACT Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1996. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. by A. Trevor Thrall. Ph.D.
World theatre is nowadays taken for granted, but its post-War pioneer was the remarkable Peter Da... more World theatre is nowadays taken for granted, but its post-War pioneer was the remarkable Peter Daubeny. This blog post reflects on Daubeny's achievement, particularly his World Theatre Seasons at the Aldwych Theatre. My tour Peter Daubeny's World of Theatre celebrates this achievement with readings from his memoirs 'My World of Theatre' given at some of the theatres he used, including the one where it all started in 1951. http://charnowalks.co.uk/peter-daubeny-world-of-theatre/
Observers of American foreign policy have been worried for years about eroding public support for... more Observers of American foreign policy have been worried for years about eroding public support for international engagement, especially in light of increasing public discontent after nearly two decades of military conflict since 9/11. Low support for international engagement and military intervention among younger Americans, in particular, has led some to worry that the age of American internationalism has passed. There is little agreement, however, about how serious the erosion of public support is and what its causes are.<br><br>Relying on an analysis of seven decades of polling data, we argue that generational effects have slowly reshaped patterns of American foreign policy preferences. Since World War II, Americans have come of age during periods increasingly less conducive to support of military intervention, leading them to adopt worldviews increasingly at odds with those carried by older Americans. As a result, the United States is undergoing a slow-motion changing...
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 15205430709337006, May 1, 2007
The “hegemonic” tradition argues that the president enjoys unparalleled power to manage news and ... more The “hegemonic” tradition argues that the president enjoys unparalleled power to manage news and opinion during war. This approach has dominated political communication literature on war and the media for over a generation. The war with Iraq, however, provides a major challenge to conventional wisdom. We believe that classical propaganda theory provides a useful corrective to the hegemonic perspective and offers a better way to understand the Bush administration&amp;#x27;s propaganda strategy and its impact on public ...
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09636410701547915, Aug 24, 2007
To many scholars, the Bush administration's ability to convince a majority of the public to ... more To many scholars, the Bush administration's ability to convince a majority of the public to favor war with Iraq represents a dangerous failure of the marketplace of ideas. A healthy marketplace, they argue, would have produced a more robust debate over the administration's justifications for war, revealing their weakness. In this paper I argue that these scholars have based their arguments on a poorly specified model of the marketplace of ideas and that Iraq does not represent a failure of the marketplace. Contrary to ...
Abstract: Administration has pursued a propaganda (ie public relations and public diplomacy) stra... more Abstract: Administration has pursued a propaganda (ie public relations and public diplomacy) strategy as a way to resolve opinion disjuncture and paradox at home and abroad. In place of the usual tools of foreign policy: building alliances, engaging allies in policy debate, conducting diplomacy, etc., the Bush Administration approach seeks to use symbols, arguments, and rhetoric to conduct foreign policy and thereby “win the peace.” This paper examines the Bush Administration's approach to “winning the peace” by:(1) ...
Propaganda is situational. This primary aspect of propaganda became apparent to American intellec... more Propaganda is situational. This primary aspect of propaganda became apparent to American intellectuals in the aftermath of World War I, The Great War, which certainly lived up its original name when it came to standardizing the template of war propaganda in modern mass democratic societies. Walter Lippmann, often misremembered as a champion of mass public opinion, was a functionary in the Wilson administration when it created the famously influential Committee on Public Information. CPI is remembered not only as “ ...
The continued rise of entertainment news, the fragmentation of the mass audience, and the increas... more The continued rise of entertainment news, the fragmentation of the mass audience, and the increasing diffusion of digital communications, raises the prospect that celebrities stand poised to become important new gatekeepers of a transformed global public sphere. Thanks in particular to their dominance of social media platforms scholars have found reason to suspect that celebrities will be more successful getting heard about political issues than ever before. On the other hand, the literature on celebrity human rights advocacy remains heavily reliant on anecdotes and case studies. The few quantitative studies suggest that very few celebrities manage to generate attention for human rights causes on the order of Bono, George Clooney, or Angelina Jolie. Thus, though celebrities enjoy huge followings and have the potential to command global attention under certain circumstances, there is also good reason to expect that celebrity impact on foreign affairs and human rights agendas will be limited. More research is needed to investigate the expanding global reach of celebrities, the relationship between politicized celebrities and the media, the conditions under which certain celebrities gain resonance on specific issues, and the strategic efforts NGOs make to leverage celebrity supporters.
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