"Hunting where the ducks are": The Republican racial strategy in post -Civil Rights era presidential campaigns, 1960--2000.
Item
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Title
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"Hunting where the ducks are": The Republican racial strategy in post -Civil Rights era presidential campaigns, 1960--2000.
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Identifier
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AAI3169967
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identifier
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3169967
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Creator
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Powers, Carey L.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Frances Fox Piven
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Political Science, General
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Abstract
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This dissertation employs a discursive analysis of presidential campaign speeches between 1960--2000 to illustrate how Republican candidates have used covert racial rhetoric to attract white voters through the development of a racial code. This pattern of racial campaigning began in the South to combat the growing demands of the civil rights movement, expanding over time from a thinly veiled defense of states' rights to a more elaborate rhetorical package that linked the traditional conservative banner of states' rights with racialized social policies of the welfare state, crime and race-conscious policies. By imbuing black-associated policies with negative racial implications over time and across regions, successful Republican presidential candidates have nationalized the racial code. The persistence of racialized rhetoric across four decades of presidential campaigns suggests that the racial code has become a normalized feature of the domestic platform of successful presidential candidates. This rhetorical strategy has contributed to a constricted, dominantly conservative political dialogue on racialized issues, including public disdain for welfare and explicitly race-conscious policies, as well as opposition to "big government" and acceptance of the imagery of black criminality.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
