The Bifurcation of American and Non-American Perspectives in Foreign Policy

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 (03) ◽  
pp. 553-557
Author(s):  
Ole R. Holsti
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Henry Kissinger ◽  
The Third ◽  
Stanley Hoffmann ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Foreign Scholar ◽  
American Authors ◽  
Shed Light

The bifurcation of American and non-American perspectives in foreign policy analysis is a large topic to which justice cannot be done in limited space. To reduce the subject to somewhat more manageable scope, the focus here is on teaching and. more specifically, on undergraduate courses on American foreign policy. After examining some evidence that might shed light on the question, this essay will suggest some reasons, both within and outside the discipline, for this development, as well as some possible ways of avoiding undue parochialism by ensuring that non-American perspectives get some hearing.This is not the place to undertake extensive content analyses of foreign policy texts, but even a cursory glance at several recent, widely used volumes indicates that many students are exposed almost wholly to American perspectives. Materials cited in footnotes and as suggested readings are overwhelmingly written by American authors. That pattern also extends to three of the best recent collections of readings on American foreign policy. The first includes 32 essays, not one of which is by a non-American, all nine chapters in the second are by Americans, and only one of 12 essays in the third is co-authored by a foreign scholar. In fairness, it should be pointed out that these materials hardly present a homogeneous viewpoint on the sources, conduct, and consequences of American diplomacy; a collection of readings that includes essays by George Kennan, Carl Gershman, Henry Kissinger, and Stanley Hoffmann can hardly be accused of presenting a single outlook. Moreover, the diversity of choices among available texts provides a broad range of perspectives, from moderately hard-line to distinctly revisionist.

Angola: The Present Opportunity

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-18
Author(s):  
John A. Marcum
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Third World ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Henry Kissinger ◽  
The Third ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
Gulf Of Tonkin ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Present Opportunity

As remote and improbable a venue for a crisis in American foreign policy as Quemoy or the Gulf of Tonkin, Angola (1975) came to assume a Munich-like symbolism in the calculations of Americans who perceived a threat of Soviet expansionism into the third world during the latter years of the Brezhnev era. Smarting from a political/military shutout in Angola that came on the heels of a humiliating American exodus from Saigon, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pointed to Angola as the “principal” cause of a deterioration in U.S.-Soviet relations. Subsequent policy confrontations over Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Cambodia reinforced this perception of Angola as the beginning of the end of detente.

The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy

2005 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
Lawrence D. Freedman ◽  
Jussi M. Hanhimäki
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Henry Kissinger

Autonomy in Foreign Policy: A Latin American Contribution to International Relations Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Cecilia Míguez
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
American Contribution

Autonomy is a concept constantly referred to in Latin American foreign policy analysis, especially with respect to Argentina and Brazil. As great powers continue to exert effective control over peripheral economies and their political decision making, autonomy emerges as a possibility for self-determination in the areas where hegemonic powers’ economic, political, and cultural interferences are expressed. Although this is not a new concept, the quest for autonomy within the “global periphery”—and elsewhere too—still remains relevant. Helio Jaguaribe and Juan Carlos Puig’s theoretical approaches are fundamental epistemological contributions to international relations (IR), not only in South America (where the theoretical approach was first developed) but also to the wider IR field outside the mainstream scholarship. In line with global historical changes, autonomy took on some subsequent new meanings, which led to new and heterogeneous formulations that transformed, and in certain cases also contradicted, the very genesis of the idea of autonomy. As a result, the so-called autonomy “with adjectives” emerged within IR peripheral debates. The 21st century witnessed the rebirth of the concept amid the rise of multilateralism and the new Latin American regionalism, which brought its relational character to the fore. Some of the new approaches to autonomy, especially from Brazil, used the concept as a methodological tool to understand the historical evolution of the country’s foreign policy. As such, autonomy and its theoretical reflection remain central to the analyses and interpretations of the international relations of peripheral countries, and it is in this sense that the autonomy can be highlighted broadly as a Latin American contribution to IR discipline. The concept of autonomy has a unique and foundational content referred to the discussion of the asymmetries in the global order. Studying autonomy is critical to understanding peripheral countries’ problems and dynamics.

4. American foreign policy during the Cold War

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Saull
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Third World ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter offers a theoretically informed overview of American foreign policy during the Cold War. It covers the main historical developments in U.S. policy: from the breakdown of the wartime alliance with the USSR and the emergence of the US–Soviet diplomatic hostility and geopolitical confrontation,to U.S. military interventions in the third world and the U.S. role in the ending of the Cold War. The chapter begins with a discussion of three main theoretical approaches to American foreign policy during the Cold War: realism, ideational approaches, and socio-economic approaches. It then considers the origins of the Cold War and containment of the Soviet Union, focusing on the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. It also examines the militarization of U.S. foreign policy with reference to the Korean War, Cold War in the third world, and the role of American foreign policy in the ending of the Cold War.

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