Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Löfflmann
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Washington Consensus ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Global Engagement ◽  
Firm Believer

This chapter provides a summary of the book’s findings. The chapter argues that the geopolitical vision of a more restrained leadership role and more cautious global engagement Obama formulated was reflecting the post-American future rather than the hegemonic past of America’s role in world politics. It assesses that most influential scholars, pundits and policy makers in turn remained embedded in the Washington consensus of hegemony and mired in a unipolar worldview. The chapter identifies a further fracturing of the grand strategy consensus, between elite opinion and the foreign policy establishment denouncing ‘isolationist’ tendencies, and an American public increasingly in favour of non-interventionism and in acceptance of a less singular hegemonic role. The chapter briefly reviews how this conflict was also encapsulated in the contest for Obama’s succession between Hillary Clinton, a quintessential Washington insider and firm believer in America’s role as the world’s indispensable nation and Donald Trump, an anti-establishment populist that had aggressively questioned the elite consensus on US foreign and economic policy.

Grand Strategy of the Master Class

2021 ◽  
pp. 106-122
Author(s):  
Matthew Karp
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
Antebellum Era ◽  
Fugitive Slave

This chapter discusses the role of Southerners and slavery in US foreign policy from the antebellum era to the Civil War. Studies that explore slavery's specific impact on foreign policy have generally confined themselves to the ways that slaveholders worked to secure fugitive slave laws, enact restrictions on black sailors, or, at most, fight to add new slave states to the Union. However, the kind of domination that slaveholders desired went beyond the need to reinforce their narrow property rights, or even the desire to expand the amount of territory under slave cultivation. Antebellum slaveholders assumed national Cabinet posts to command the power of the entire United States, and then, crucially, to use that power to strengthen slavery in world politics. If grand strategy is “the intellectual architecture that gives form and structure to foreign policy,” slaveholding leaders were not merely provincial sectionalists but bold and cosmopolitan strategic thinkers. Their profound ideological commitment to slavery did not merely affect domestic politics within a divided republic; it left a deep imprint on the “strategic culture” of American foreign policy.

scholarly journals Introduction: Theory and Policy in International Relations

1972 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 3-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Tanter ◽  
Richard H. Ullman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Policy Maker ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Specialized Training ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Policy Community ◽  
Science Disciplines

It is a commonplace observation—certainly among practicing members of the foreign policy community, but also among academic students of world politics—that policy-makers have seldom given much heed to the writings of theorists on international relations. Particularly in recent years, when academic writing on international relations has grown increasingly technical in nature and more impenetrable to a reader without specialized training in one or more social science disciplines, the theorist as theorist has had little communication with the policy-maker. It is also true that many practitioners, and many from the academic side as well, would tend to agree that, by and large, the policymakers have not missed much.

The Economic Imperatives Shaping Indian Foreign Policy

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjaya Baru
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Sustainable Growth ◽  
Global Environment ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
National Priority ◽  
Secure Environment ◽  
Indian Foreign Policy

India’s national priority is economic development, the well-being of all its people, and the maintenance of peace and stability within its neighbourhood. While Indian foreign policy is defined by these considerations, there has always been a tension between its economic policy compulsions and its international aspirations. However, India has come to recognize that its global image and influence are shaped primarily by its economic capability and capacity. The key question for foreign policy-makers is how any given strategy would impact India’s developmental aspirations and needs and provide a secure environment for the fulfilment of those needs and aspirations. India will, therefore, seek to maintain good relations with all major powers, key economic and strategic partners, and its neighbours with a view to maintaining a regional and global environment conducive to her sustained and sustainable growth.

Operational Codes in Foreign Policy: A Deconstruction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Haas
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Past History ◽  
Codes Of Conduct ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Current View ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Operational Code ◽  
Essential Components

Codes of conduct exist in many areas of life, including cultural, ethical, legal, medical, and scientific. Those pertaining to politics and especially the conduct of foreign policy are crucial for understanding how decision-makers can be effective in dealing with problems involving opposite numbers who subscribe to different codes. Accordingly, the concept of “operational code” has been developed in the study of international politics to refer to a set of lenses that filter how decision-makers perceive, process, and react to situations involving other countries. Although some operational code researchers enlighten puzzles in past history and construct theories, others hope to use the research to advise policy-makers on how to avoid blunders in future decision-making. The present historiographic essay begins by tracing the foundations of operational code research in the late 1940s. Because some foreign policy leaders appear to adhere more strictly to an operational code than others, a major puzzle is how to determine the essential components of an operational code. Various efforts are contrasted, with a standardization of definitional parameters two decades later. Efforts to develop operational code methodology have developed over time with successes in quantification that are best validated by qualitative analysis. The codes of decision-makers are micro-codes compared to the partisan ideologies (meso-codes) that bring them to office and the political cultures (macro-codes) in which they operate in various countries around the world. What began as a cognitive psychological exercise became transformed into a form of social psychological analysis of decision-makers. A current view is that the upbringing of leaders shapes their goal seeking, whereas occupying the role as leader of a country in the context of world politics also shapes their operational codes. As a result, operational code research has become involved in the continuing quest to determine which major paradigm of social science best provides a coherent explanation for how leaders guide their decision-making.

Playing Favorites: How Shared Beliefs Shape the IMF's Lending Decisions

2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Relative Size ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Observation Window ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Shared Beliefs ◽  
Lending Decisions ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

AbstractInternational organizations (IOs) suffuse world politics, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stands out as an unusually important IO. My research suggests that IMF lending is systematically biased. Preferential treatment is largely driven by the degree of similarity between beliefs held by IMF officials and key economic policy-makers in the borrowing country. This article describes the IMF's ideational culture as “neoliberal,” and assumes it to be stable during the observation window (1980–2000). The beliefs of top economic policy-makers in borrowing countries, however, vary in terms of their distance from IMF officials' beliefs. When fellow neoliberals control the top economic policy posts the distance between the means of the policy team's beliefs and the IMF narrows; consequently, IMF loans become less onerous, more generous, and less rigorously enforced. I gathered data on the number of conditions and the relative size of loans for 486 programs in the years between 1980 and 2000. I collected data on waivers, which allow countries that have missed binding conditions to continue to access funds, as an indicator for enforcement. I rely on indirect indicators, gleaned from a new data set that contains biographical details of more than 2,000 policy-makers in ninety developing countries, to construct a measure of the proportion of the top policy officials that are fellow neoliberals. The evidence from a battery of statistical tests reveals that as the proportion of neoliberals in the borrowing government increases, IMF deals get comparatively sweeter.

Epilogue: Implications for American Grand Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 213-218
Author(s):  
Thomas Waldman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Global Engagement ◽  
Long Run ◽  
American Grand Strategy

This chapter suggests some possible implications of the analysis for US grand strategy and considers the extent to which vicarious warfare might be eclipsed by the demands of re-emerging great power rivalry. It assesses the broad contours of US foreign policy and offers prescriptions regarding the best way forward. The chapter also focuses on the overarching purpose or 'vision' of US global engagement, identifying vital interests and suggesting how they can best be secured by employing the resources available to the nation in ways that accord with foundational values. The chapter then turns to the application of military force in some sweeping grand strategic articulations, especially those associated with the pursuit of continued US primacy and liberal interventionism. Ultimately, the chapter presents a way to escape the never-ending spirals of war, resistance and radicalization that characterizes current approaches, which, in the long run, will likely prove cumulatively more costly in blood, treasure and insecurity. It unveils the impacts of the application of ill-considered military force.

23. US decline or primacy? A debate

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Layne ◽  
William Wohlforth ◽  
Stephen G. Brooks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
External Driver ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
Us Decline

This chapter focuses on the debate over whether U.S. power is in decline and if so, what is the best grand strategy that the United States needs to pursue. Three leading experts offer their views on the issue and its significance for U.S. foreign policy: Christopher Layne, William Wohlforth, and Steven Brooks. Layne argues that the United States is now in inexorable decline and attributes it to the end of unipolarity. He identifies two specific drivers of American decline, one external and one domestic. The external driver of U.S. decline is the emergence of new great powers in world politics, while domestic drivers include debt, deficits, and the dollar’s uncertain future. In contrast, Wohlforth and Brooks assert that the United States remains the sole superpower, and that multipolarity is not just around the corner.

scholarly journals GEOPOLITICS OF CONTAINMENT IN THE POST COLD WAR WORLD

TEME ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1389
Author(s):  
Igor Miodrag Pejić
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World Order ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Initial Objective

The main goal of this paper is to explain the need for geopolitics and how it influenced the decision making of various statesmen throughout political history. Since ancient times, geopolitical conditions have determined the courses and strategies of various civilizations driving them into conflict or allowing them to prosper. In the 19th century geopolitics became a necessary knowledge for statesmen, politicians and leaders who wished to engage into a turbulent arena of world politics. For them the geopolitics provided awareness and information about other world players, about their assets and liabilities, strengths and weaknesses. Following the rules of geopolitics grand strategies have been designed. The grand strategy of containment marked an entire epoch in modern human history. Employed by the US, containment was aimed against the Soviet Union in order to curb its expansion and to sustain the balance of power. Although successful, after its initial objective took a new shape of statehood, containment as a strategy had a rough time adjusting to the new world order. First section of the article will be dedicated to the development of geopolitics and how it influenced the states and their foreign policy decision making. In the second part of the article there will be an attempt to explain how containment worked as a grand strategy during the Cold War, its objectives, methods of applications and most importantly how does containment work in our contemporary world and is it viable as a strategy for achieving foreign policy goals?

Dirk J. Wolfson. Public Finance and development Strategy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1979. Pp. xiv+264.

1982 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-257
Author(s):  
Zafar Mahmood
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Use Of Resources ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Council

The world in its politico-economic aspects is run by policy-makers who have an academic background in law or public administration or other related social disciplines including economics. Only rarely would a majority of the policy-makers be trained in economics. In the making of economic policy, the basic choices before the policy-makers are political and they transcend the narrow concerns of economists regarding optimal use of resources. These considerations in no way downgrade the relevance of economic analysis in economic policy-making and for the training of policy-maker in economics. Policy-makers need economic council to understand fully the implications of alternative policy options. In this book, Wolfson attempts to educate policy-makers in the areas of public finance and development strategy. The analysis avoids technicalities and is kept to a simple level to make it understandable to civil servants, law-makers and members of the executive branch whom Wolfson refers to as policy-makers. Simplicity of analysis is not the only distinguishing mark of this book. Most other books on public finance are usually addressed to traditional public finance issues relating to both the revenue and expenditure sides of the budget and neglect an overall mix of issues dealing with the interaction of fiscal policy with economic development. Wolfson in this book explicitly deals with these issues.

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