Browsing by Author "Mercieca, Jennifer R."

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    Making Sense of Judicial Sensemaking: A Study of Rhetorical Discursive Interaction at the Supreme Court of the United States.
    (2011-08-08) Malphurs, Ryan Allen; Aune, James A.; Swearingen, C. Jan J.; Conrad, Charles R.; Mercieca, Jennifer R.
    This dissertation engages previous research in political science and psychology by arguing for the importance of oral arguments from a communication perspective, examining justices' rhetorical discursive interaction in oral arguments, introducing Sensemaking as a new model of judicial decision making, and discussing the legal and cultural impact of justices' rhetorical discursive interaction in Morse v. Frederick, Kennedy v. Louisiana, and District of Columbia v. Heller. In contrast to the aggregate behavioral models and longitudinal studies conducted by political scientists and psychologists, this study examines these specific cases in order to gauge each justice's individual interaction in oral argument and to determine how certain justices may have controlled the discursive flow of information within oral arguments, which in turn may have influenced the Court's decision making ability. The dissertation begins with an introduction, providing an overview of the development and study of legal rhetoric from the Greeks to present day. A review of prior literature in law, political science, and psychology displays how fields outside of communication view oral arguments and reveals where communication may provide valuable contributions to the study of Supreme Court oral arguments. Theoretical and methodological approaches adopted for the study of oral arguments are discussed. Analysis within the dissertation begins with an overview of the inherent complexity found within oral arguments and applies the previously discussed theoretical and methodological approaches to the case of Morse v. Frederick as a means of determining theoretical and methodological validity. Following analysis of Morse v. Frederick, a second case, Kennedy v. Louisiana is analyzed to determine if similar results will occur. Final consideration is given to a third case, District of Columbia v. Heller, to understand whether justices' behavior may deviate in more socially and politically sensitive cases. The dissertation concludes with suggestions for lawyers and judges based upon this study's findings and makes recommendations to scholars for further areas of research.
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    The Religious Foundations of Civic Virtue
    (2011-10-21) Maloyed, Christie Leann; Nederman, Cary J.; Ellis, Elisabeth H.; Baer, Judith A.; Mercieca, Jennifer R.
    Scholarly accounts of the history of civic virtue in the modern era have with few exceptions been wholly secular, discounting, ignoring, or even outright rejecting the role religious thought has played in shaping the civic tradition. In this dissertation, I focus on the influence of religion on the civic tradition, specifically in the eighteenth century in Scotland and America. I examine the ways in which the religious traditions of each nation shaped the debate surrounding the viability of civic virtue, the place of religious virtues among the civic tradition, and the tensions between using religion to promote civic virtue while protecting individual religious liberty. In the Scottish Enlightenment, I examine the influence of Francis Hutcheson’s moral sense philosophy and Adam Ferguson’s providential theology. In the American Founding, I contrast the New England religious tradition exemplified by John Witherspoon and John Adams with the public religious tradition advocated by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. This work demonstrates not only that religion influences the civic tradition, but also that this influence is neither monolithic nor self-evident. In order to understand how religion shaped this tradition, it is necessary to take into account that different conceptions of religion produce different understandings of what it means to be a good citizen.
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    Rhetoric and heresthetic in the Mississippi Freedom Party controversy at the 1964 Democratic Convention
    (Texas A&M University, 2005-11-01) Battaglia, Adria; Aune, James Arnt; Gatson, Sarah; Mercieca, Jennifer R.; Ritter, Kurt
    This thesis shows the development and shifts in rhetorical form as strategies evolve to meet heresthetic demands. This thesis explores the rhetorical crisis that emerged between the Democratic Party and the Mississippi Freedom Party at the 1964 Democratic Convention. Specifically, the focus is on the rhetorical discourse presented by the members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Fannie Lou Hamer in particular, at the Credentials Committee two days before the onset of the actual Convention. It is the rhetorical interplay in the specific context of the Committee, the subsequent political bargaining behind the scenes during the next four days of the Convention, and the emerging and evolving constraints as a result of this bargaining that illuminate the symbolic power and limitations behind a rhetoric aimed at redefining race in the nation??s social and political consciousness.
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    The Rhetoric of Political Time: Tracing the Neoliberal Regime's Ascent
    (2017-05-10) Terry, Andrea June; Mercieca, Jennifer R.; Poirot, Kristan; Barbour, Jennifer J; Mackin, Robert R
    In this dissertation, I argue that Stephen Skowronek’s theory of political time can be used as analytic to better understand the rhetorical opportunities and constraints for presidents and presidential candidates. In particular, I look to Ronald Reagan as a case study: as a president who came on the heels of the end of FDR’s liberal era, Reagan set the tone for a new presidential regime, consisting of particular rhetorical and policy commitments that were all shaped through his neoliberal economic policy. After identifying the rhetorical hallmarks of the neoliberal era as constructed by Reagan, I analyze the rhetorical efforts of his successor, regime articulation president George H.W. Bush, to negotiate the changing domestic and international atmosphere within the rhetorical and policy constraints of Reagan’s neoliberalism. Finally, I identify and analyze the preemptive efforts of Bill Clinton and Ross Perot during the 1992 election as they attempted to renegotiate key aspects of Reagan’s rhetorical and policy commitments to win the presidency. The analysis of each individual’s rhetoric is aided by attention to both discursive and visual rhetoric: the rhetorical interiors and exteriors of regime discourse. The analysis of Reagan’s neoliberal regime emergence begins with the 1964 primary run against Barry Goldwater and continues through his presidency. Analysis of Bush begins with his 1980 primary election contest against Ronald Reagan and culminates in the 1992 election. Both Clinton and Perot were analyzed using stump speeches and advertisements from the primaries through the 1992 presidential election. For each individual, analysis of Time magazine covers provided visual confirmation or rejection of each rhetor’s rendition of neoliberal regime commitments. In the end, while Reagan was successful in establishing the rhetorical and policy commitments of the Neoliberal regime, Bush was unable to perform those commitments to the satisfaction of the base; as a result, Clinton’s rendition of the neoliberal regime, which he presented as a “third way” during the 1992 presidential election, succeeded in winning the presidency.
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    Rousseau against Republicanisms: Political Community and Human Order at the Edge of a Tradition
    (2017-04-27) Dyer, Megan Kathleen; Nederman, Cary J.; von Vacano, Diego A.; Ura, Joseph D.; Mercieca, Jennifer R.
    Over the past few decades, scholarship in political theory as well as in intellectual history has shown a growing interest in civic republicanism, a theory of politics with ancient lineages, which might offer new ways to confront political challenges and address contemporary concerns. In many respects, however, the idea of civic republicanism remains underdeveloped. There is broad disagreement regarding the fundamental character of republicanism and who qualifies for membership in such a tradition. In this project, I employ the idea of republicanism as a family of concepts in order to preserve theoretical rigor yet maintain a capacious understanding of it, an approach allowing me to engage with the diversity of situation and practice where republican ideas of politics have been applied. I use this approach to elucidate the political thought of a figure few have studied through the lens of civic republicanism: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose relationship to republican tradition remains ambiguous despite the promise of approaching his thought from this perspective. In subsequent chapters, I focus on the ways in which Rousseau engages a diversity of republican lineages by exploring his thought alongside various accounts of the republic found in early modern political thought: a traditional, classical and Christian idea of the republic as seen in the works of Leonardo Bruni; an imperial republic exemplified in the writings of Machiavelli; and a commercial republicanism synthesized from the writings of Montesquieu but with other roots in the Augustinian moral theorists of Port-Royal. Through their considerations of problems of moral knowledge and true community, human order and power, and the passions as source of human sociability, these comparisons draw out important features of Rousseau’s republicanism. I then discuss Rousseau’s own robust yet judicious account of the goods of human association and the benefits of a common life, and finally, in the face of all human limitation, his demand that all republics be constituted according to right. Reclaiming Rousseau’s republicanism, I demonstrate, not only acknowledges a far more subtle approach to the virtuous society but also can offer resources for those concerned with the more problematic elements of republican thought.
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    Tropes and Topoi of Anti-Intellectualism in the Discourse of the Christian Right
    (2011-08-08) Carney, Zoe L.; Mercieca, Jennifer R.; Aune, James A.; Harmel, Robert
    Christianity is not anti-intellectual; however, there is a distinct quality of anti-intellectualism in the rhetoric of the Christian Right. This thesis explores the ways in which rhetors in the Christian Right encourage anti-intellectual sentiment without explicitly claiming to be against intellectualism. I argue that the Christian Right makes these anti-intellectual arguments by invoking the tropes and topoi of populism, anti-evolution, and common sense. I analyze how Pat Robertson, as a representative of the Christian Right, used the stock argument, or topos, of populism in his 1986 speech, in which he announced his intention to run for President. I argue that while Robertson used the generic argumentative framework of populism, which is "anti-elitist," he shifted the meaning of the word "elitist" from a wealthy person to an intellectual person. This formed a trope, or turn in argument. Next, I consider the Christian Right's argument against the teaching of evolution. I analyze William J. Bryan's argument in the Scopes Trial, a defining moment in the creation-evolution debate. I show that Bryan used the topos of creationism, which included the loci of quality and order, to condemn the teaching of evolution, arguing that it would be better to not have education at all than for students to be taught something that contradicts the Bible. Finally, I consider how both Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin used the topos of common sense. Reagan used this topos to create a metaphorical narrative that was to be accepted as reality, or common sense. Sarah Palin, then, used the common sense narrative that Reagan had created to support her views. By calling her ideas "common sense" and frequently referencing Reagan, her rhetoric gives the illusion that good governing is simple, thus removing the space for an intellectual in public life.