Woes of the Arkansas Internationalist: J. William Fulbright, the Middle East, and the Death of American Liberalism

<p>Contemporary scholarship has shown that J. William Fulbright's defeat in 1974 was due to a plethora of reasons including his opposition to America's involvement in Vietnam, lackadaisical attitude towards the monolithic threat of Communism, connection to the Washington establishment amidst the Watergate scandal, and old age. Scholars, however, have not paid enough attention to the role Fulbright's Middle Eastern stances played in his final election campaign. I seek to place the voice of Arkansans in the national and international political discussions and show that, despite their relatively unfocused interest in Middle Eastern affairs (and perhaps because of that lack of interest or willingness to learn) their political choices were considerably determined by their perception of a liberal internationalist candidate as Senator Fulbright. Arkansas voters successfully placed themselves in the international and national conversations, showing that local politics influenced the larger global narrative during the Cold War.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts in History (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Smith, Mitchell

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Brogi, Alessandro

Contributors dc:contributor

• Woods, Randall B.
• Williams, Patrick G.

• Social sciences
• Arkansas politics
• Foreign policy
• William J. Fulbright
• Middle East
• Orientalism
• International Relations
• Near and Middle Eastern Studies
• United States History

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/773

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarworks.uark.edu:etd-1772