Right ideas: Discourse, framing, and the conservative coalition.
Item
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Title
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Right ideas: Discourse, framing, and the conservative coalition.
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Identifier
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AAI3325416
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identifier
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3325416
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Creator
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Meagher, Richard J., Jr.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Frances Fox Piven
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Date
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2008
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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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Today's conservative coalition is best understood as an alliance between economic and social conservatives. As the Republican base, social conservatives deliver votes and other means of support to GOP candidates, who then implement the economic conservatives' agenda. Social conservatives are mollified to some extent by legitimation, access, and symbolism, but eventually demand policy change; yet coalition leaders are reluctant to deliver on their controversial social issues. Instead, discursive entrepreneurs frame issues in family and moral terms in order to win the support of social conservatives, thereby achieving at least two goals. First of all, entrepreneurs broaden the support for issues that are dear to economic conservatives (or, in some cases, other powerful interests within the coalition). Second, and perhaps more importantly, they strengthen social conservatives' ties to the coalition by granting them policy "rewards" for issues in which they did not even know they were interested.;In this dissertation, I focus on three case studies: estate tax repeal, the war on terror, and abortion. I rely on detailed interviews with over 25 conservative activists and political operatives, supported by content analysis of hundreds of primary and secondary sources. Using insights from social movement theory, I show how entrepreneurs frame issues to build the conservative coalition. Instead of turning the coalition's attention towards policies important to social conservatives, entrepreneurs change the kinds of policies that social conservatives consider to be important, and at little cost.
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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.
