U.S. Foreign Policy

This second edition of a successful book has been updated and extended and, as its predecessor did, presents students with an essential and concise introduction to postwar US foreign policy.This book explores the key questions of who makes policy, why, in what style or tradition, under what kinds of democratic controls and in what kind of international environment.Updated to include recent developments in US foreign policy, and with expanded chapters, this new edition provides challenging and thought-provoking analysis of the crucial issues, including:* the accession of George W. Bush* September 11 and the recent war in Iraq* containment* presidential war powers* realism and idealism* the Cuban missile crisis* Vietnam, Panama, Yugoslavia and Kosovo* the New World Order* US interventionism and exit strategies.With a student-friendly chronology, expanded referencing, and a new conclusion that unites the themes of the book and looks toward the future, this will undoubtedly be as widely-used and popular as the excellent first edition.

The history of twentieth-century American foreign policy presents an indictment of classical and structural realism and systemic theories of international relations more generally. Examining five crucial movements of transition in American foreign policy making - before and after each of the world wars and the end of the Cold War - Shonberg argues that the national interest resides mostly in the eye of the beholder, and that the idiosyncratic perceptions, beliefs, and values of individuals are of vital importance in the policy process. Thus, America's recent experiences in global politics, interpreted through the lens of national ideology, has defined and created the ultimate shape of a new foreign policy.

In America's foreign affairs there has been a delicate balance between often conflicting imperatives of interests, ideals, and power. How these imperatives have interacted to shape the constellation of American foreign policy decisions throughout the nation's history and, indeed, how they have served to advance or subvert attainment of America's regional, hemispheric and global ambitions, is the subject of this study. This collection of essays explores seminal decisions in American foreign policy and diplomatic history, from the early National period to the Vietnam War, each of which proved to be a turning point, and then asks readers to consider alternative futures based upon different courses of action. Nielson underscores how history could, and perhaps should, have been different.

Journalist and historian Eric Alterman argues that the vast majority of Americans have virtually no voice in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. With policymakers answerable only to a small coterie of self-appointed experts, corporate lobbyists, self-interested parties, and the elite media, the U.S. foreign policy operates not as the instrument of a democracy, but of a "pseudo-democracy": a political system with the trappings of democratic checks and balances but with little of their content. This failure of American democracy is all the more troubling, Alterman charges, now that the Cold War is over and the era of global capital has replaced it. Americans' stake in so-called foreign policy issues from trade to global warming is greater than ever. Yet the current system serves to mute their voices and ignore their concerns.

Experts have long insisted that the public is too ignorant to contribute to the creation of successful foreign policy. But over the course of two hundred years, as Alterman makes clear, the American people have shown an impressive consistency in their ideals and values. The problem for any elite, the author explains, is that Americans often define their interests quite differently than those who would speak in their name. The American public's values are, ironically, much closer to the "liberal republican" philosophy of our founders than to those of our most powerful elites.

Alterman concludes with a series of challenging proposals for reforms designed to create a truly democratic U.S. foreign policy.

As the public face of America has changed, so has its foreign policy. Diversity and US Foreign Policy: A Reader goes beyond the traditional texts - that focus on foreign policy only as a contest between super-powers - to grapple with multiculturalism in America and multi-polarism in the international state. This volume brings together the best and most recent work on the domestic causes of American foreign policy. The articles meet at the intersection of two critical phenomena: the expansion of politically relevant diversity within the US population and the simultaneous expansion of political and economic power of diverse nations globally. Essays examine multiculturalism and foreign policy in general, along with European, Latino, Asian, Jewish, African and Arab-Americans and their relationship to US foreign policy making.

Ambrosio and his colleagues provide a unique collection of essays on the relationship between ethnic identity groups and U.S. foreign policy. The book covers a wide range of issues, historical periods, and geographic regions. Integrated chapters examine four major issues: the traditional (white) role of ethnicity in U.S. foreign policy; ethnic identity group mobilization; newcomers to the foreign policy process; and the complexities of ethnic identity politics.

Human Rights and Comparative Foreign Policy is the first book in English to examine the place of human rights in the foreign policies of a wide range of states during contemporary times. The book is also unique in utilizing a common framework of analysis for all 10 of the country or regional studies covered. This framework treats foreign policy as the result of a two-level game in which both domestic and foreign factors have to be considered. Leading experts from around the world analyze both liberal democratic and other foreign policies on human rights. A general introduction and a systematic conclusion add to the coherence of the project. The authors note the increasing attention given to human rights issues in contemporary foreign policy. At the same time, they argue that most states, including liberal democratic states that identify with human rights, are reluctant most of the time to elevate human rights concerns to a level equal to that of traditional security and economic concerns. When states do seek to integrate human rights with these and other concerns, the result is usually great inconsistency in patterns of foreign policy. The book further argues that different states bring different emphasis to their human rights diplomacy, because of such factors as national political culture and perceived national interests. In the last analysis states can be compared along two dimensions pertaining to human rights: extent to which they are oriented toward an international rather than national conception of rights; and extent to which they are oriented toward international rather than national action to protect human rights.

We may be at an historic turning point. We live in a dangerous world, it is true--but it is also a world filled with opportunity. Democracy is spreading in Latin America and perhaps in Asia and Africa. The political polarization of the world has receded. Once again, the human race may be on the verge of a quantum jump, and the U.S. has an historic opportunity to lead the world into a new, even more advanced, global civilization. That is why the crafting of our foreign policy is so important. And this book outlines the problems--and their solutions--of that policy. It will be of vital interest to students and policy makers.

There are more than fifty women in the United States Congress and nearly one-fourth of foreign service posts are held by women. Nevertheless, the United States has yet to entrust a senior foreign policy job, outside of the United Nations, to a woman. Beneath these statistics lurk central myths that Jeffreys-Jones cogently identifies and describes: the "Iron Lady" - too masculine; the "lover of peace" - too "pink"; the weak or the promiscuous. These are to name only a few. With an eye to the feminist foreign policy leaders of the future, the author traces the successes and failures of collectivities such as Women Strike for Peace and individuals who were influential in international politics since World War I, including Alice Paul, Jane Addams, Jeannette Rankin, Dorothy Detzer, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Chase Smith, Helen Gahagan Douglas, Bella Abzug, Margaret Thatcher, and many others. These women often found ways to employ the myths to their own and to their country's benefit, and more recently have had the freedom to defy the stereotypes altogether.

Making use of newly-researched archival materials, this collection of original essays on wartime and post-war US foreign policy re-evaluates well-known crises and documents many less familiar aspects of the nation's mid-twentieth century conflicts. Leading diplomatic historians address familiar subjects from new angles. They offer new evidence about the risks run and the costs incurred in the prosecution of the Cold War, from Korea to the Caribbean. And they provide an up-to-date accounting of mid-twentieth century American diplomacy's global purposes and consequences.

This study challenges the notions that the U.S. press is either an active participant in the foreign policy process or an instrument of presidential manipulation. Based on a content analysis of New York Times' reporting of five recent foreign policy disasters, Berry explores the thesis that the press accepts administration assumptions on foreign policy matters, but only until the policy fails. The work also addresses the differences between domestic and foreign policy reporting, and compares the work of foreign-based correspondents with that of U.S.-based reporters.