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Abstract
ABSTRACT
This dissertation seeks to give a rhetorical account of the 1977-78 battle over the Panama Canal Treaty and the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal. It will trace the crafting and deployment of a partisan rhetoric amidst the political turmoil that erupted around the issue. Ultimately, I contend that the Panama Canal treaty debates were prismatic of the partisan rhetorics that have emerged, circulated and continue to shape political relations and notions of political identity today. Because the rhetorical actors involved in the Panama Canal treaties include the president, members of Congress, national and local media, leaders of various professional, civic and religious groups, and individual members of the American public, the debates provide a unique case for understanding how the United States as a whole—not merely the political parties themselves—became intensely partisan. In their arguments for and against the treaties the president, the public, and the US Senate engaged in partisan argumentative strategies that sought to establish their own positions and overwhelm their opponents. The public and anti-treaty leaders represented what I will call the “angry partisan,” venting their anger and hurling invective at those they perceived as willing to revise the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty. As the chief pro-treaty advocate, President Carter took up an evangelical democratic exceptionalism and positioned himself as a wise and rational teacher to an unruly and misinformed public. Caught in middle were the members of the US Senate, who found themselves trying to decide both how to vote and how to justify that vote in ways that were either partisan, or that attempted to engage partisans in a more open discussion.
This dissertation seeks to give a rhetorical account of the 1977-78 battle over the Panama Canal Treaty and the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal. It will trace the crafting and deployment of a partisan rhetoric amidst the political turmoil that erupted around the issue. Ultimately, I contend that the Panama Canal treaty debates were prismatic of the partisan rhetorics that have emerged, circulated and continue to shape political relations and notions of political identity today. Because the rhetorical actors involved in the Panama Canal treaties include the president, members of Congress, national and local media, leaders of various professional, civic and religious groups, and individual members of the American public, the debates provide a unique case for understanding how the United States as a whole—not merely the political parties themselves—became intensely partisan. In their arguments for and against the treaties the president, the public, and the US Senate engaged in partisan argumentative strategies that sought to establish their own positions and overwhelm their opponents. The public and anti-treaty leaders represented what I will call the “angry partisan,” venting their anger and hurling invective at those they perceived as willing to revise the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty. As the chief pro-treaty advocate, President Carter took up an evangelical democratic exceptionalism and positioned himself as a wise and rational teacher to an unruly and misinformed public. Caught in middle were the members of the US Senate, who found themselves trying to decide both how to vote and how to justify that vote in ways that were either partisan, or that attempted to engage partisans in a more open discussion.