American Foreign Policy

Graduate Seminar, 271112, 10-12 Thu

Dr. David Lorenzo
Office: 271305
Phone: 2939-3091 ext. 51305
lorenzodav@gmail.com
lorenzo@nccu.edu.tw
Webpage: www3.nccu.edu.tw/~lorenzo

Overview:
This seminar will prepare students to conduct advanced research in topics in
American Foreign Policy (AFP). It will cover the theoretical basics of AFP
scholarship and explore some recent topics in AFP through an examination of
article-based, generally recent, scholarship.

Assignments:
Students will be responsible for the following:
Reading the assignment materials and participating in general
discussions
Leading discussions on particular articles when assigned
Two six page assessments and critiques of articles
Submission of a preliminary literature review for their paper
A final (15 page MA /20 page PhD) paper

Classes:
Classes will be conducted as seminars. This means that I will only lecture for a small
portion of the class time. The rest of the time will be spent either as a class or in small
groups in discussing the reading material that has been assigned.

Each class period I will assign students to lead the discussion on articles that will be
assigned for the next class period. Students so assigned should do the reading with
special care such that they can present a short summary of the argument of the article
and provide a list of discussion questions for the class.

Materials:
All materials will be available either online or in pdf files on my NCCU website. For
those who want or need a history of American foreign policy, there are many histories
available, including the documentary histories and textbook prepared by Thomas

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Paterson (e.g., American Foreign Relations). For a quick and dirty timeline, the
Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_U.S._foreign_policy) is a
convenient place to start, but of course is not suitable as a scholarly source of
evidence or data.

Students should read at least three assigned readings for each class period. When
more than three readings are listed, students should collectively make sure that all
readings have been covered.

Grades:
Short papers: 25% each
Final paper: 40%
Participation: 10%

Papers
Participants will submit the following:

During the classes on the 7th and 12th weeks:

A six page paper analyzing and assessing the arguments of two related articles we
have read. These papers should: clearly identify the articles; shortly summarize the
argument of each; assess and critique the argument of each in terms of logical
consistency, use of evidence and data, and theoretical power: then discuss the
relevance and importance of each.

During the class of the 15th week:

A three page review of the literature on the subject of your final paper. This review
shall identify relevant articles and books, discuss their relationship with the question
posed by the paper, and assess the state of the scholarship at present bearing on the
question posed.

Final:
On the day scheduled for the final exam submit the final paper. This paper will,
building upon the literature review, data, and theoretical position you build, explore a
question implicated in the study of American foreign policy. Your paper must clearly:
Identify the question you pose
Discuss that question in light of the literature review you create
Identify the methodology and evidence you will utilize
Answer the question

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 Discuss the importance and relevance of your answer
Discuss the importance and relevance of your answer both generally and in
light of your literature review.

Grading Scale:

A: 100-90: Excellent work—generates several interesting insights and displays a sure

grasp of the material
B: 89-80: Good, above average work—sometimes generates interesting insights and
displays a solid grasp of the material
C: 79-70: Average work—displays a competent grasp of the material
D: 69-60: Below average work—displays a grasp of the material that is sometimes
deficient
F: 59- : Unacceptable work: displays a poor grasp of the material

Other important sources:

The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org): A conservative think tank
Council on Foreign Relations (www.cfr.org): a liberal to centrist think tank
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (www.csis.org): a right of center
think tank
The Brookings Institute (www.brookings.org): a liberal think tank
RAND Corporation (www.rand.org): the original think tank
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (www.carnegiecouncil.org): a
centrist think tank
The American Enterprise Institute (www.aei.org): a conservative think tank
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (www.ceip.org): a centrist think tank
State Department (www.state.gov)
The Defense Department (www.defense.gov)
House Committee on International Relations
(www.house.gov/international_relations)
House Armed Services Committee (www.house.gov/hasc)
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (www.intelligence.house.gov)
House Select Committee on Homeland Security (www.hsc.house.gov)
Senate Foreign Relations Committee (www.foreign.senate.gov)
Senate Armed Services Committee (www.armed-services.senate.gov)
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (www.intelligence.senate.gov)
Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov)
National Security Agency (www.nsa.gov)

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Voice of America (www.voa.gov)
Republican Party (www.gop.org)
Democratic Party (www.dnc.org)
Archive of Docs Related to the Cold War (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/coldwar.htm)

Course Schedule and Readings

Part 1: Theoretical Approaches to the Study of American Foreign Policy

Week of September 12: Introduction and Overview
Oli R. Holsti, “Models of International Relations and Foreign Policy,
Diplomatic History, (Winter 1989), pp. 15-43
Questions: What are the most important questions to be explored
regarding American foreign policy?
What are the most important events/documents in the history of
American foreign policy?

Week of September 19: Realism

Kenneth Waltz, “Anarchic Orders and Balances of Power,” Theories
of International Politics (McGraw-Hill, 1979).
Michael Mastanduno, “Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist
Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 21,
No. 4 (Spring, 1997)
John C. Whitehead, “Principled realism: a foundation for U.S.
foreign policy,” US Department of State Bulletin, June, 1988, at
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_n2135_v88/ai_6495618/?tag=content;c
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Henry Kissinger, The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction: Risking
Judicial Tyranny,” Foreign Affairs, July / August, 2001
J. Mearsheimer, “Hans Morgenthau and the Iraq war: realism versus
neo-conservatism,”
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-americanpower/morgenthau_2522.jsp
Questions: What are the differences between realism as a mode of
inquiry and realism as a foreign policy outlook?

Week of September 26: Liberal Internationalism

Woodrow Wilson, League of Nations Speech, 25 September, 1919, at
http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/wilsonspeech_league.htm
Woodrow Wilson, “Fourteen Points Speech, 8 January, 1918, at

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http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp
G. John Ikenberry, “America’s Liberal Grand Strategy: Democracy
and National Security in the Post-War Era,” in G. Ikenberry, American Foreign Policy:
Theoretical Essays.
Samuel P. Huntington, “American Ideals vs. American Institutions,”
Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 97, No. 1 (Spring 1982).

Week of October 3: Economic and Bureaucratic Understandings

Jeff Frieden, “Sectoral Conflict and U.S. Foreign Economic Policy,”
International Organization 42, No. 1 (Winter 1988), pp. 59-90
Robert Hunter Wade, “The Invisible Hand of the American Empire,”
Ethics and International Affairs 17, No. 2 (Nov. 2003), pp. 77-88
Immanuel Wallerstein, “The Eagle Has Crash Landed,” Foreign
Policy, No. 131 (Jul. - Aug., 2002), pp. 60-68
Daniel W. Drezner, “Ideas, Bureaucratic Politics, and the Crafting of
Foreign Policy,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Oct., 2000),
pp. 733-749
Stephen D. Crasner, “Are Bureaucracies Important? (Or Allison
Wonderland),” Foreign Policy 7 (Summer 1972), pp. 159-179
Bert Rockman, “America’s Departments of State: Irregular and
Regular Syndromes of Policy Making,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 75,
No. 4 (1981), pp. 911-927
Questions: Do bureaucracies matter? Do elected officials matter?
What agency do either have in terms of setting foreign policy?

Week of October 10: Constructivist/Traditions

Walter Russell Meade, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy
and How it Changed the World
Dale C. Copeland, “Review: The Constructivist Challenge to
Structural Realism: A Review Essay,” International Security, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Autumn,
2000), pp. 187-212
Paul McCartney, “Nationalism and U.S. Foreign Policy from
September 11 to the Iraq War,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, No. 3 (Fall,
2004), pp. 399-423
Michael Mastanduno, “The United States Political System and
International Leadership: A ‘Decidedly Inferior’ Form of Government?” in G.
Ikenberry, ed., America Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays.

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 Questions: Do culture and domestic politics matter? Is there
anything distinctive regarding the way Americans view and approach foreign
policy?

Topic 2: Twentieth Century Events

Week of October 17: Cold War

Melvyn P. Leffler, “The American Conception of National Security and
the Beginnings of the Cold War, 1945-48,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 89,
No. 2 (Apr., 1984), pp. 346-381
Graham T. Allison, “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” American
Political Science Review, 63, No. 3 (September 1969), pp. 689-718.
J. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of
American National Security Policy During the Cold War, chapters 2, 9
George Kennan, The Sources of Soviet Conduct (The “X” Article).
M. Cox, "Whatever Happened To the 'Second' Cold War?
Soviet-American Relations 1980-1988," Review of International Studies 1990, Vol 16
Questions: What type of world allows the US to be secure? Must
all countries be liberal democracies or otherwise resemble the US? Or will a
world in which no other country or group of countries is able to coerce the US
sufficient?

Week of October 24: Vietnam

Yuen Foong Khong, “Seduction by Analogy in Vietnam: The Malaya
and Korea Analogies”
Edward Cuddie, “Vietnam: Mr. Johnson's War. Or Mr. Eisenhower's?”
The Review of Politics, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 351-37
L. Gelb, "The Essential Domino: American Politics and Vietnam",
Foreign Affairs, April 1972.
Randall Bennett Woods, “Dixie's Dove: J. William Fulbright, The
Vietnam War and the American South,” The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 60, No.
3 (Aug., 1994), pp. 533-552
J. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American
National Security Policy During the Cold War, chap 8.
Questions: Was the US correct to engage in regional wars on the
basis of the “domino” theory, or do displays of US power harm the US cause by
making it appear to be a hegemon to be opposed at all costs? Did the US
misperceive the expression of nationalism in developing countries?

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Week of October 31: Iraq Wars
Louis Fisher, “Deciding on War against Iraq: Institutional Failures,”
Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 118, No. 3 (Fall, 2003), pp. 389-410
Paul T. McCartney, “American Nationalism and U.S. Foreign Policy
from September 11 to the Iraq War,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, No. 3 (Fall,
2004), pp. 399-423
Chaim Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the
Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War,” International Security, Vol. 29,
No. 1 (Summer, 2004), pp. 5-48.
Brian C. Schmidt & Michael C. Williams, “The Bush Doctrine and
the Iraq War: Neoconservatives Versus Realists,” Security Studies, 17:2, 191-220
Questions: What threats did Iraq pose to the US? Was the decision
to use force to democratize Iraq based on a sound strategy or did it
misunderstand the nature of democracy and the Middle East?

Week of November 7: Foreign Policy and Terrorism

Stephen M. Walt, “Beyond bin Laden: Reshaping U.S. Foreign
Policy,” International Security, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Winter, 2001-2002), pp. 56-78
Melvyn P. Leffler, “9/11 and the Past and Future of American Foreign
Policy,” International Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 5(Oct., 2003), pp. 1045-1063
Robert G. Patman, “Globalisation, the New US Exceptionalism and the
War on Terror,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 6 (2006), pp. 963-986
Michael C. Desch, “America’s Liberal Illiberalism: The Ideological
Origins of Overreaction in U.S. Foreign Policy,” International Security, Vol. 32, No.
3 (Winter 2007/08), pp. 7–43
Questions: Did the US over-react to 9/11? Can US foreign policy
since that event be explained by terrorism, or are other explanations more
compelling?

Topic 3: Politics and Institutions

Week of November 14: Presidency and Cabinet
Jeffrey S. Peake, “Presidential Agenda Setting in Foreign Policy,”
Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 69-86
Margaret G. Hermann and Thomas Preston, “Presidents, Advisers,
and Foreign Policy: The Effect of Leadership Style on Executive Arrangements,”
Political Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 1, Special Issue: Political Psychology and the Work
of Alexander L. George (Mar., 1994), pp. 75-96

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 Paul E. Peterson, “The President's Dominance in Foreign Policy
Making,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 2 (Summer, 1994), pp. 215-234
James M. McCormick and Eugene R. Wittkopf, “Bipartisanship,
Partisanship, and Ideology in Congressional-Executive Foreign Policy
Relations,1947-1988,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Nov., 1990), pp.
1077-1100.

Week of November 21: Congress

James Meernik, “Presidential Support in Congress: Conflict and
Consensus on Foreign and Defense Policy,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 55, No. 3
(Aug., 1993), pp. 569-587
James Meernik and Elizabeth Oldmixon, “Internationalism in
Congress,” Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Sep., 2004), pp. 451-465
James M. Lindsay, “Congress and Foreign Policy: Why the Hill
Matters,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 107, No. 4, (Winter 1992-1993), pp.
607-628
James M. Lindsay, “Congress, Foreign Policy, and the New
Institutionalism,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp.
281-304

Week of November 28: Public Opinion and Foreign Policy

R. Jacobs, and B. Page, “Who Influences U.S. Foreign Policy?” The
American Political Science Review, Vol. 99, No. 1, Feb.2005.
A.Berinsky, “Assuming the costs of war: Events, elites, and American
public support for military conflict”. The Journal of Politics, Vol. 69, No. 4, Nov.
2007
D. Lorenzo,. “The Lumpy Consistency of Foreign Policy Arguments
Deployed by the Activist Portion of the American Public" (manuscript)
W. Mead, “The Tea Party and American Foreign Policy,” Foreign
Affairs, March/April 2011.

Week of December 5: Foreign Policy Tools

J.L Gaddis. "The Rise, Fall and Future of Detente", Foreign Affairs,
Winter 1983-84.
W.Y. Smith, "Principles of US Grand Strategy: Past and Future", The
Washington Quarterly, Spring 1991
Andrew C. Goldberg "Selective Engagement: U.S. National Security
Policy in the 1990's", The Washington Quarterly, Vol 15, No3, Summer 1992

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 Larry Diamond "Promoting Democracy, " Foreign Policy, No87,
Summer 1992
L. Freedman,. "Escalators and Quagmires: expectations and the use of
Force" International Affairs, 1991.
S. Knack, “Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy?” International
Studies Quarterly (2004) 48, 251–266

Topic 4: Regions
Week of December 12: Middle East
Jody C. Baumgartner, Peter L. Francia, Jonathan S. Morris, “A Clash
of Civilizations? The Influence of Religion on Public Opinion of U.S Foreign Policy
in the Middle East,” Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Jun., 2008), pp.
171-179
Noam Chomsky, “After the Cold War: U. S. Foreign Policy in the
Middle East,” Cultural Critique, No. 19, The Economies of War (Autumn, 1991), pp.
14-31
Douglas Little, “The Making of a Special Relationship: The United
States and Israel, 1957-68,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 25, No.
4 (Nov., 1993), pp. 563-585

Week of December 19: Asia

Aaron L. Friedberg “The Future of U.S.-China Relations: Is Conflict
Inevitable?” International Security, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 7-45
Steven M. Goldstein and Randall Schriver, “An Uncertain
Relationship: The United States, Taiwan and the Taiwan Relations Act,” The China
Quarterly, No. 165, Taiwan in the 20th Century (Mar., 2001), pp. 147-172
Peter Howard, “Why Not Invade North Korea? Threats, Language
Games, and U.S. Foreign Policy,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 4
(Dec., 2004), pp. 805-828

Topic 5: Critiques
Week of December 26: Scholarly Critiques
Joseph Nye, “Soft Power and American Foreign Policy,” Political
Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, No. 2 (Summer, 2004), pp. 255-270
Samuel Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” Foreign Affairs Vol.
78, No. 2 (March-April 1999), pp. 35-50
G. John Ikenberry, “America’s Imperial Ambition,” Foreign Affairs
Vol. 81, No. 5 (Sept-Oct. 2002), pp. 44-60

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 Anonymous, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on
Terror. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004
Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power
and the Neoconservative Legacy, 2006.

Week of January 2: Review and Catchup

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