The Politics of United States Foreign Policy

Politics and national interest

Politics:Who gets what, when and howCompetition for power and shared meaning Competition between different individuals and groups for control of government, and for support of the public and influence throughout society, in order to promote certain ends

National interest: Riason d'état. The goals of politics; what is most beneficial for the state

What is Foreign Policy?

Foreign policy/foreign relations:

…the scope of state involvement abroad and the collection of goals, strategies, and instruments that are selected by governmental policymakers

The foreign policy process: How policy decisions are formed, put on the

agenda and implemented

The Foreign Policy Process

What forces drive foreign policy?Political/ideological, moral, economic…

What actors contribute to foreign policy formulation?

The president, Congress, the foreign policy bureaucracy

Advisors, cabinet officials, political parties, courts, etc.

Why we study foreign policy

History

Relevance:obvious effects

Security, economy

often overlooked effectsEnvironment, global health initiatives

How we study foreign policy:

three levels of analysis

• The historical and global power context

• The government and policymaking process

• Society and domestic politics

How do scholars typically look at foreign policy?

• The policy approachEmphasize contemporary events.

Policy-prescriptive scholarship.

• The historical approachEmphasize historical patterns.

Narrative rather than prescriptive scholarship.

• The social-science approach• Identify patterns in specific facets of policy. • Theory-developmental scholarship.

How we study foreign policy:

Three central themes• Presidential supremacy in foreign policy

– A modern role, often challenged– three patterns over time

• Cold War peak • post-Vietnam decline • post-Cold-War tenuous increase

• Patterns of continuity and change in U.S. foreign policy– Post-WWII dominance/global presence, Post-Vietnam

transitions (decline of presidential power, fall of anti-communist consensus, IPE considerations)

• Conflicting tension between democracy and security– Individual rights (transparency, dialogue) versus national

security (secrecy, mass support, efficiency)