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Demonstrates how the Reagan administration and members of Congress shaped US human rights policy in the late Cold War.
This book posits that democracy promotion played a key role in the Reagan administration’s Cold War foreign policy. It analyzes the democracy initiatives launched under Reagan and the role of administration officials, neoconservatives and non-state actors, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), in shaping a new model of democracy promotion, characterized by aid to foreign political movements and the spread of neoliberal economics. The book discusses the ideological, strategic and organizational aspects of U.S. democracy promotion in the 1980s, then analyzes case studies of democracy promotion in the Soviet bloc and in U.S.-allied dictatorships in Latin America and East Asia, and, finally, reflects on the legacy of Reagan’s democracy promotion and its influence on Clinton, Bush and Obama. Based on new research and archival documents, this book shows that the development of democracy promotion under Reagan laid the foundations for US post-Cold War foreign policy.
This book considers whether the United States and the People’s Republic of China have irreconcilable visions of world order. The United States, China, and the Competition for Control evaluates the twin claims that China seeks to dismantle the post–World War II international order and that the United States seeks to defend it. It defines the post–war order and examines how the United States and China have behaved within and in relation to it since 1945. An analysis of the two states’ rhetoric and policy reveals that their preferences for international order are not as divergent as today’s conventional wisdom suggests. The book therefore concludes that U.S. policies that treat China as a threat to international order are misplaced and offers policy recommendations for how the United States can both preserve the post–war order and protect its vital national interests. The book will be of interest to foreign policy practitioners, commentators, and analysts as well as students and scholars of security studies, international relations, and geopolitics.
Shows how domestic identity narratives and political polarization shape the sociopolitical response to refugees The United States once played a major role in global refugee resettlement, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all refugees resettled worldwide. However, in recent years, it has dramatically cut refugee admissions and implemented discriminatory policies on refugee protection. These policies have been justified amid intensifying xenophobic rhetoric against specific groups. In this book, Alise Coen explains why the monumental shift around refugee resettlement occurred, particularly in response to the high-profile conflict in Syria. She shows how refugees—and broader global migratio...
This book provides a novel account of the role of human rights discourse in the US foreign policy. The book analyses the US State Department’s Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as a means to monopolise and, more importantly, legitimise a specific framing of the human rights agenda to further US foreign policy. The US agenda’s deviation from established international human rights standards has very serious implications considering the preponderant global influence exercised by the US. Furthermore, more recently, the reports have added a separate section on "corruption" as a human rights issue. “Corruption”, a controversial concept from the outset, is understood in a narrow way as a public sector issue that largely prevails in and subverts the so-called developing and transition countries. This book shows how this recent inclusion ultimately serves the US global neoliberal imperialist agenda and becomes the hegemonic discourse in international organisations.
A close look at Woodrow Wilson’s political thought and international diplomacy In the widely acclaimed To End All Wars, Thomas Knock provides an intriguing, often provocative narrative of Woodrow Wilson’s epic quest for a new world order. This book follows Wilson’s thought and diplomacy from his policy toward revolutionary Mexico, through his dramatic call for “Peace without Victory” in World War I, to the Senate’s rejection of the League of Nations. Throughout, Knock reinterprets the origins of internationalism in American politics, sweeping away the view that isolationism was the cause of Wilson’s failure and revealing the role of competing visions of internationalism—conservative and progressive.
A new understanding of US policy toward Vietnam after the end of the Vietnam War based on fresh archival discoveries.
Now in its third edition, Ways of War is a comprehensive guide to United States military history and its wider relationship to American society, from the seventeenth century to the present day. This volume remains an accessible and compelling textbook for students and instructors, combining traditional “drum and bugle” history with “war and society” approaches to highlight the military’s influence on American culture, economics, and politics. The new edition contains over 60 maps, both new and revised, to further illustrate military battles, campaigns, and operations. Each chapter also includes a wealth of images alongside chapter timelines identifying key events, text boxes provid...
Drawing together history and recent historiography, this volume offers a reference work for understanding how religion influenced politics and how politics shaped religion in the United States from the American Revolution through to the present day. The book brings together some of the most well-regarded scholars in history, religious studies, American studies, political science, and other disciplines working in this field, providing a groundbreaking transdisciplinary history of this topic. It explores the major themes and historiographical trends that animate current scholarship, ensuring that readers come away with a thorough picture of the field, how it has evolved, and where future scholars might take us. This unique approach is well suited to students and scholars of both U.S. history and religious studies and encourages interdisciplinary analysis for the fields of religion and politics.
In the late 1970s, the United States often seemed to be a superpower in decline. Battered by crises and setbacks around the globe, its post–World War II international leadership appeared to be draining steadily away. Yet just over a decade later, by the early 1990s, America’s global primacy had been reasserted in dramatic fashion. The Cold War had ended with Washington and its allies triumphant; democracy and free markets were spreading like never before. The United States was now enjoying its "unipolar moment"—an era in which Washington faced no near-term rivals for global power and influence, and one in which the defining feature of international politics was American dominance. How ...