International Relations: Barack Obama’s foreign policy
International Relations: Barack Obama’s foreign policy
Barack Obama’s foreign policy was overwhelmingly characterised by weakness and a lack of leadership. Discuss.
Is there a specific focus to your essay?
Key texts:
–
Ambrose, Stephen & Douglas Brinkley. 2011. Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy
Since 1938 9th edition. London: Penguin Books.
–
McDougall, Walter. 1997. Promised Land, Crusader State: American Encounter with
the World Since 1776. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Seminar Readings
*Indicates a key reading
Part I – Foundations
Week 1 – Ideologies and Languages of US Foreign Policy
*Dunn, David. 2005. Isolationism Revisited: Seven Persistent Myths in the Contemporary American Foreign Policy Debate. Review of International Studies.
*McDougall, Walter. 1997. Back to Bedrock: The Eight Traditions of American Statecraft. Foreign Affairs.
Campbell, David. 1998. Writing Security: US Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Introduction, Ch 2-3.
Desch, Michael. 2007. America’s Liberal Illiberalism: The Ideological Origins of
Overreaction in US Foreign Policy. International Security.
Dueck, Colin. 2008. Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Introduction, Ch 5, Conclusion.
Hunt, Michael. 2009. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ch 3.
Khong, Yuen Foon. 1992. Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnamese Decisions of 1965. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ch 1, 8.
Lieven, Anatol. 2012. America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Introduction, Ch 1, 5.
Mead, Walter Russell. 2004. Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changes the World. New York: Routledge. Ch 1-2
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2003. The Decline of American Power: The US in a Chaotic World. New York: New Press.
Part II – Institutions of US Foreign Policy
Week 2 – Executive Branch part 1: The President and the State Department
*Canes-Wrone, Brandice, William Howell, & David Lewis. 2008. Toward a Broader Understanding of Presidential Power: A Reevaluation of the Two Presidencies Thesis. Journal of Politics.
*Clinton, Hillary Rodham. 2012. ‘Leading through Civilian Power’ in J McCormick (ed) The Domestic Sources of US Foreign Policy 6th edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
*Haney, Patrick. 1997. Organizing for Foreign Policy Crises: Presidents, Advisers and the Management of Decision Making. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ch 3.
Buzzanco, Robert. 1996. Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ch 4.
Costigliala, Frank. 2012. Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the
Cold War. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Halberstam, David. 1972. The Best and the Brightest. New York: Random House.
Krenn, Michael. 1999. Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department, 1945-1969. Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe. Ch 1-2.
Mann, Jim. 2004. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet. New York: Penguin.
Saunders, Elizabeth. 2014. Leaders at War: How Presidents Shape Military Interventions. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Ch 2.
Wildavsky, Aaron. 1966. The Two Presidencies. Trans-Action.
