History Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2778
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Item CHOOSING ONE’S WORDS: HOW JULIO-CLAUDIAN EMPERORS COMMANDED THEIR ELITE SUBJECTS IN THE WORKS OF LATIN HISTORIANS(2022) Abrams, Brian Michael; Eckstein, Arthur; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Roman emperors acted within a culture deeply concerned with personal honor. In this environment issuing commands to aristocratic subjects presented the potential for conflict, as the honor of the commanded subject was at risk. One technique adopted by some of the Julio-Claudian dynasty was to embrace ambiguity in how they phrased their commands. Through an examination of the verbs used by Latin historians to describe the emperor issuing a command, it becomes clear that emperors relied upon this type of ambiguous phrasing when dealing with elite subjects. However, there was little use of ambiguity when dealing with non-elite subjects. There is a generational divide in the use of ambiguity, and it is argued here that this was because the elder Julio-Claudians had been present for the genesis of this strategy during the reign of Augustus, while the younger members of the dynasty had not. Strategic ambiguity was a method by which the emperor could fashion himself as first citizen rather than as a master.Item Ideologues and Pragmatists: World War II, New Communists, and Persistent Dilemmas of the Soviet Party-State, 1941-1953(2010) Stotland, Daniel; David-Fox, Michael; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The decision-making paradigm of the Soviet party-state was defined by the persistent shortage of qualified manpower that afflicted the Russian elite. The traditional Russian problems of under administration, combined with the unique features of the Soviet political system, resulted in a dichotomy between practical and ideological demands. The era of WWII provides a microcosm of pressures facing the Kremlin and illustrates the cyclical nature of policy formation forced on it by the paradoxes of the system. As the party's responsibilities expanded into specialized economic and military areas, political experts increasingly depended on the specialized professionals. These trends grew increased drastically during the war. An unexpected consequence of the party's expansion into economic or military professions was the discovery that co-optation worked both ways and many party members become managers rather than ideological overseers. Throughout the existential crisis of the system - the war and its aftermath - the party would find itself in a fundamental conflict over its identity, challenged over its role both vis-a-vis the state and its own priorities. After an abortive attempt by Zhdanov to reverse the wartime trends, a new paradigm was articulated by the party during the last five years of Stalin's reign. This resulted in the emergence of a new elite consensus which envisioned the party as intergral and invasive economic actor. This shift in the party's identity was the price of maintaining centralized political power and came at the expense of the focus on ideological purity. In the long term, however, the diminished role of ideology robbed the party of its core value system and steadily eroded its legitimizing and self-energizing power. Over time, the new consensus would undermine the very foundations of the party-state construct. Yet if the USSR was to survive as a modern, industrialized state, the accommodation with the technocrats was necessary. The contradiction between ideological and pragmatic aims was inherent to the system, and demanded an eventual choice between the long-term health of the state and that of the party.