The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy: Insights and Evidence

Book Overview

The new edition of this leading reader for courses in American foreign policy offers students an up-to-date, highly accessible introduction to the broad array of domestic factors influencing U.S. policymakers. Editor James M. McCormick has carefully selected two dozen current insightful and sometimes controversial essays by a distinguished group of leading experts-- scholars, journalists and public officials--including 11 new and 7 updated contributions.

In his introduction, McCormick evaluates the challenges facing U.S. foreign policy makers in recent years and assesses the Obama Administration's successes and failures in its efforts to pursue a new direction in American foreign policy. The volume is then divided into three major parts with an opening essay by the editor to place each part in context and then a selection of essays that analyzes the topic in that part in more detail. Part I, "The Societal Environment," contains a series of articles on the position of interest groups, the impact of military experience, the effect of public opinion, and the role of elections and political parties on foreign policy. Part II, "The Institutional Setting," examines how various political institutions, such as Congress, the presidency, and various bureaucracies (e.g., the National Security Council, the intelligence community) shape American foreign policy. Part III, "Decision makers and Their Policymaking Positions," provides various case analyses over several administrations to illustrate how individuals and bureaucracies affect the foreign policy decision making at the highest levels of government.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1442209615
• ISBN13: 9781442209619
• Release Date: June 2012
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 484 Pages
• Weight: 1.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.9" x 1.1" x 6.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Still useful in its fifth edition

James McCormick and the late Eugene Wittkopf assembled an extremely information set of perspectives on the framework and practices of U.S. foreign policy during the past two administrations. The best of the material are causal analyses of classic foreign policy decisions ranging from our entry into Vietnam to advocacy of the post-USSR expansion of NATO. Many of the articles added in more recent editions to discuss 21st century events and trends are nearly as impressive. Two contributions added to the 5th edition--notably Colin Powell's article on diplomatic statecraft and Stanley A. Renshon's panegyric to the foreign policy leadership of George W. Bush--are poor choices clearly intended to provide "balance" to coverage of an administration that had a dubious record in foreign affairs. Sadly, the Powell and Renshon articles replaced much more scholarly contributions in the 4th edition authored by Fred Greenstein and Thomas Preston and Margaret Hermann. Nevertheless, on balance, this work is lauded by students in my graduate-level courses on U.S. foreign policy for its insights and diversity, and is also very useful to my undergraduate students.