American Foreign Policy
American Foreign Policy
Graduate Seminar
Dr. David Lorenzo
Office: 271305
Phone: 2939-3091 ext. 51305
lorenzodav@gmail.com
lorenzo@nccu.edu.tw
Overview:
This seminar will prepare students to conduct advanced research in topics in
American Foreign Policy (AFP). It will cover the theoretical basics of AFP
scholarship and explore some recent topics in AFP through an examination of
article-based, generally recent scholarship.
Assignments:
Students will be responsible for the following:
Reading the assignment materials and participating in general
discussions
Leading discussions on particular articles when assigned
Two six page assessments and critiques of articles
Submission of a preliminary literature review for their paper
A final (15 page MA /20 page PhD) paper
Classes:
Classes will be conducted as seminars. This means that I will only lecture for a small
portion of the class time. The rest of the time will be spent either as a class or in small
groups in discussing the reading material that has been assigned.
Each class period I will assign students to lead the discussion on each of the articles
that will be assigned for the next class period. Students so assigned should do the
reading with special care such that they can present a short summary of the argument
of the article and provide a list of discussion questions for the class.
Materials:
All materials will be available either online in pdf files, or through copies that I will
provide. For those who want or need a history of American foreign policy, there are
many histories available, including the documentary histories and textbook prepared
by Thomas Paterson (e.g., American Foreign Relations). For a quick, dirty and
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generally reliable timeline the Wikipedia entry
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_U.S._foreign_policy) is a convenient place
to start, but of course is not suitable as a scholarly source of evidence or data.
Grades:
Short papers: 25% each
Final paper: 40%
Participation: 10%
Papers
Participants will submit the following:
During the classes on the 7th and 12th weeks:
A five page paper analyzing and assessing the arguments of two related articles we
have read. These papers should: clearly identify the articles; shortly summarize the
argument of each; assess and critique the argument of each in terms of logical
consistency, use of evidence and data, and theoretical power: then discuss the
relevance and importance of each.
During the class of the 15th week:
A three page review of the literature on the subject of your final paper. This review
shall identify relevant articles and books, discuss their relationship with the question
posed by the paper, and assess the state of the scholarship at present bearing on the
question posed.
Final:
On the day scheduled for the final exam submit the final paper. This paper will,
building upon the literature review, data, and theoretical position you build, explore a
question implicated in the study of American foreign policy. Your paper must clearly:
Identify the question you pose
Discuss that question in light of the literature review you create
Identify the methodology and evidence you will utilize
Answer the question
Discuss the importance and relevance of your answer
Discuss the importance and relevance of your answer both generally and in
light of your literature review.
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Grading Scale:
A: 100-90: Excellent work—generates several interesting insights and displays a sure
grasp of the material
B: 89-80: Good, above average work—sometimes generates interesting insights and
displays a solid grasp of the material
C: 79-70: Average work—displays a competent grasp of the material
D: 69-60: Below average work—displays a grasp of the material that is sometimes
deficient
F: 59- : Unacceptable work: displays a poor grasp of the material
Other important sources:
The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org): A conservative think tank
Council on Foreign Relations (www.cfr.org): a liberal to centrist think tank
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (www.csis.org): a right of center
think tank
The Brookings Institute (www.brookings.org): a liberal think tank
RAND Corporation (www.rand.org): the original think tank
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (www.carnegiecouncil.org): a
centrist think tank
The American Enterprise Institute (www.aei.org): a conservative think tank
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (www.ceip.org): a centrist think tank
State Department (www.state.gov)
The Defense Department (www.defense.gov)
House Committee on International Relations
(www.house.gov/international_relations)
House Armed Services Committee (www.house.gov/hasc)
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (www.intelligence.house.gov)
House Select Committee on Homeland Security (www.hsc.house.gov)
Senate Foreign Relations Committee (www.foreign.senate.gov)
Senate Armed Services Committee (www.armed-services.senate.gov)
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (www.intelligence.senate.gov)
Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov)
National Security Agency (www.nsa.gov)
Voice of America (www.voa.gov)
Republican Party (www.gop.org)
Democratic Party (www.dnc.org)
Archive of Docs Related to the Cold War (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/coldwar.htm)
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Course Schedule and Readings
Week of February 17: Introduction and Overview
W.Y. Smith, "Principles of US Grand Strategy: Past and Future", The Washington
Quarterly, Spring 1991
Week of February 24: Realism as an American Strategy
Michael Mastanduno, “Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and
U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 21, No. 4
(Spring, 1997)
John C. Whitehead, “Principled realism: a foundation for U.S. foreign policy,”
US Department of State Bulletin, June, 1988, at
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_n2135_v88/ai_6495618/?tag=content;c
ol1
J. Mearsheimer, “Hans Morgenthau and the Iraq war: realism versus
neo-conservatism,” www.openDemocracy.net
Sebastian Rosato and John Schuessler, “A Realist Foreign Policy for the United
States,” Perspectives on Politics, Volume 9, Issue 04, December 2011
Week of March 3: Liberal Internationalism as an American Strategy
Woodrow Wilson, League of Nations Speech, 25 September, 1919, at
http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/wilsonspeech_league.htm
Woodrow Wilson, “Fourteen Points Speech, 8 January, 1918, at
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp
G. John Ikenberry, “America’s Liberal Grand Strategy: Democracy and National
Security in the Post-War Era,” in G. Ikenberry, American Foreign Policy: Theoretical
Essays.
Samuel P. Huntington, “American Ideals vs. American Institutions,” Political
Science Quarterly, Vol. 97, No. 1 (Spring 1982).
Week of March 10: Economic and Bureaucratic Explanations
Jeff Frieden, “Sectoral Conflict and U.S. Foreign Economic Policy,”
International Organization 42, No. 1 (Winter 1988), pp. 59-90
Robert Hunter Wade, “The Invisible Hand of the American Empire,” Ethics and
International Affairs 17, No. 2 (Nov. 2003), pp. 77-88 (xerox)
Immanuel Wallerstein, “The Eagle Has Crash Landed,” Foreign Policy, No. 131
(Jul. - Aug., 2002), pp. 60-68
Daniel W. Drezner, “Ideas, Bureaucratic Politics, and the Crafting of Foreign
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Policy,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Oct., 2000), pp.
733-749
Stephen D. Crasner, “Are Bureaucracies Important? (Or Allison Wonderland),”
Foreign Policy 7 (Summer 1972), pp. 159-179 (Xerox)
Bert Rockman, “America’s Departments of State: Irregular and Regular
Syndromes of Policy Making,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 75, No. 4
(1981), pp. 911-927
Week of March 17: Foreign Policy Traditions
Walter Russell Meade, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it
Changed the World
Bear F. Braumoeller, “The Myth of American Isolationism,” Foreign Policy
Analysis Vol. 6 (2010)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1743-8594.2010.00117.x/pdf
Paul McCartney, “Nationalism and U.S. Foreign Policy from September 11 to
the Iraq War,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, No. 3 (Fall, 2004), pp. 399-423
Michael Mastanduno, “The United States Political System and International
Leadership: A ‘Decidedly Inferior’ Form of Government?” in G. Ikenberry, ed.,
America Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays.
Week of March 24: Cold War
Melvyn P. Leffler, “The American Conception of National Security and the
Beginnings of the Cold War, 1945-48,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No.
2 (Apr., 1984), pp. 346-381
Graham T. Allison, “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,”
American Political Science Review, 63, No. 3 (September 1969), pp. 689-718.
J. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National
Security Policy During the Cold War, chapters 2, 9
George Kennan, The Sources of Soviet Conduct (The “X” Article).
Week of March 31: Vietnam
Yuen Foong Khong, “Seduction by Analogy in Vietnam: The Malaya and Korea
Analogies” (Xerox)
Edward Cuddie, “Vietnam: Mr. Johnson's War. Or Mr. Eisenhower's?” The
Review of Politics, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 351-37
L. Gelb, "The Essential Domino: American Politics and Vietnam", Foreign Affairs,
April 1972.
Randall Bennett Woods, “Dixie's Dove: J. William Fulbright, The Vietnam War
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and the American South,” The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Aug.,
1994), pp. 533-552
J. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National
Security Policy During the Cold War, chap 8.
Week of April 7: Iraq Wars
Louis Fisher, “Deciding on War against Iraq: Institutional Failures,” Political
Science Quarterly, Vol. 118, No. 3 (Fall, 2003), pp. 389-410
Paul T. McCartney, “American Nationalism and U.S. Foreign Policy from
September 11 to the Iraq War,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, No. 3 (Fall,
2004), pp. 399-423
Chaim Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas:
The Selling of the Iraq War,” International Security, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Summer, 2004),
pp. 5-48.
Brian C. Schmidt & Michael C. Williams, “The Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War:
Neoconservatives Versus Realists,” Security Studies, 17:2, 191-220
Week of April 14: Foreign Policy and Terrorism
Stephen M. Walt, “Beyond bin Laden: Reshaping U.S. Foreign Policy,”
International Security, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Winter, 2001-2002), pp. 56-78
Melvyn P. Leffler, “9/11 and the Past and Future of American Foreign Policy,”
International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 79, No. 5
(Oct., 2003), pp. 1045-1063
Robert G. Patman, “Globalisation, the New US Exceptionalism and the War on
Terror,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 6 (2006), pp. 963-986
Michael C. Desch, “America’s Liberal Illiberalism: The Ideological Origins of
Overreaction in U.S. Foreign Policy,” International Security, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Winter
2007/08), pp. 7–43
Week of April 21: Presidency and Cabinet
Jeffrey S. Peake, “Presidential Agenda Setting in Foreign Policy,” Political
Research Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 69-86
Margaret G. Hermann and Thomas Preston, “Presidents, Advisers, and Foreign
Policy: The Effect of Leadership Style on Executive Arrangements,” Political
Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 1, Special Issue: Political Psychology and the Work of
Alexander L. George (Mar., 1994), pp. 75-96
Paul E. Peterson, “The President's Dominance in Foreign Policy Making,”
Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 2 (Summer, 1994), pp. 215-234
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James M. McCormick and Eugene R. Wittkopf, “Bipartisanship, Partisanship,
and Ideology in Congressional-Executive Foreign Policy Relations, 1947-1988,” The
Journal of Politics, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Nov., 1990), pp. 1077-1100.
Week of April 28: Congress
James Meernik, “Presidential Support in Congress: Conflict and Consensus on
Foreign and Defense Policy,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp.
569-587
James Meernik and Elizabeth Oldmixon, “Internationalism in Congress,”
Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Sep., 2004), pp. 451-465
James M. Lindsay, “Congress and Foreign Policy: Why the Hill Matters,”
Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 107, No. 4, (Winter 1992-1993), pp. 607-628
James M. Lindsay, “Congress, Foreign Policy, and the New Institutionalism,”
International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 281-304
Week of May 5: Public Opinion and Foreign Policy
R. Jacobs, and B. Page, “Who Influences U.S. Foreign Policy?” The American
Political Science Review, Vol. 99, No. 1, Feb.2005.
A. Berinsky, “Assuming the costs of war: Events, elites, and American public
support for military conflict”. The Journal of Politics, Vol. 69, No. 4, Nov. 2007
W. Mead, “The Tea Party and American Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs,
March/April 2011.
Week of May 12: Foreign Policy Tools
J.L. Gaddis. "The Rise, Fall and Future of Detente", Foreign Affairs, Winter
1983-84.
Ernest J. Wilson III, “Hard Power, Soft Power, Smart Power,” The ANNALS of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science 2008 616: 110
http://ann.sagepub.com/content/616/1/110
Larry Diamond "Promoting Democracy," Foreign Policy, No87, Summer 1992
L. Freedman, "Escalators and Quagmires: expectations and the use of Force"
International Affairs, 1991.
S. Knack, “Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy?” International Studies
Quarterly (2004) 48, 251–266
Topic 4: Regions
Week of May 19: Middle East
Jody C. Baumgartner, Peter L. Francia, Jonathan S. Morris, “A Clash of
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Civilizations? The Influence of Religion on Public Opinion of U.S Foreign Policy in
the Middle East,” Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Jun., 2008), pp.
171-179
Noam Chomsky, “After the Cold War: U. S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East,”
Cultural Critique, No. 19, The Economies of War (Autumn, 1991), pp. 14-31
Douglas Little, “The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and
Israel, 1957-68,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Nov.,
1993), pp. 563-585
Aylın Güney, and Fulya Gökcan, “The 'Greater Middle East' as a 'Modern'
Geopolitical Imagination in American Foreign Policy,” Geopolitics., Vol. 15 Issue
1,2010
Week of May 26: Asia
Aaron L. Friedberg “The Future of U.S.-China Relations: Is Conflict Inevitable?”
International Security, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 7-45
Steven M. Goldstein and Randall Schriver, “An Uncertain Relationship: The
United States, Taiwan and the Taiwan Relations Act,” The China Quarterly, No. 165,
Taiwan in the 20th Century (Mar., 2001), pp. 147-172
Peter Howard, “Why Not Invade North Korea? Threats, Language Games, and
U.S. Foreign Policy,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Dec., 2004), pp.
805-828
Week of June 2: Russia
Aspen Institute, US-Russia Relations: Policy Challenges for Congress
Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, “The Unraveling of the Cold War
Settlement,” Survival, vol. 51 no. 6, December 2009–January 2010
Mike Bowker, “The war in Georgia and the Western response,” Central
Asian Survey, 30:2, 2011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2011.570121
R. Craig Nation, “Results of the ‘Reset’ in American-Russian Relations,” Russie
Nie Visions, No. 52, July 2010.
Week of June 9: Concluding Discussions
Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads, chapter 5
Anonymous, Imperial Hubris, chapter 8
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