1. Painting the Cold War Red: Ronald Reagan, Human Rights, and the Constitution of American Foreign Policy.
- Author
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Dudas, Jeffrey
- Subjects
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COLD War, 1945-1991 , *HUMAN rights , *INTERNATIONAL law , *CONSTITUTIONAL law , *DEMOCRACY - Abstract
Scholars often remark that Ronald Reagan's public addresses were unusually persuasive to, and well-received by, popular audiences. Moreover, it is frequently noted that Reagan's addresses contained the essential elements of his political vision, which held out America as a "shining city on a hill," radiating outwards to all of the world's people the individual freedom that distinguished American democracy. In spite of Reagan's optimistic accounts of the American nation, he consistently warned against the overwhelming influence of "big government" on the initiative, morale, and liberty of the American people. Big government, Reagan advised, violated the individual rights that Americans held dear. I shall argue that this focus on rights also defined much of Reagan's foreign policy discourse. It was respect for the rights of individuals that distinguished responsible, mature democracies from the abuses characteristic of totalitarian regimes. Nowhere was this contrast more obvious, Reagan held, than in the distinction between the Soviet Union and the United States; the battle between freedom and tyranny was marked by respect for the rights of the individual. Given this focus, it is unsurprising that Reagan adopted the discourse of human rights, clothing American foreign policy actions and prerogatives in its legitimating guise. Yet his adoption was qualified. As seen in his condemnation of the Sandanistas, human rights led inexorably to market-style, representative democracy. Reagan's use of human rights discourse thus displays the ultimately ambivalent, unstable meanings that pervade it. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008