| The Strategic Defense Initiative: Symbolic Containment of the Nuclear Threat Contributor(s): Bjork, Rebecca S. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0791411621 ISBN-13: 9780791411629 Publisher: State University of New York Press OUR PRICE: $32.25 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 1992 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Anthologies (multiple Authors) |
| Dewey: 808.83 |
| LCCN: 91-34487 |
| Series: Suny the Making of Foreign Policy: Theories and Issues |
| Physical Information: (0.60 lbs) 182 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Through an analysis of the language and persuasive strategies used by the Reagan and Bush administrations in selling the SDI program to the Congress and the American public, Bjork takes a fresh approach to the study of U.S. foreign policy. She focuses on the shared meanings and understandings of policy as they are created through sociocultural interaction. Using Kenneth Burke's philosophy and critical method of dramatism as a theoretical framework, she shows how Reagan's SDI program appealed symbolically to a nostalgic sense of American history, replete with powerful images of American innocence and technological ingenuity in the face of difficult obstacles. Bjork concludes that the program has been shielded from criticism, has achieved symbolic and bureaucratic momentum, and serves to reinforce the isolation felt by ordinary American citizens from access to decisions over life and death issues. |