Interpreting American Foreign Policy: Ideas, History, and Practice

4 Credits.

Bordered by oceans and friendly neighbors, America combines benign geopolitical constraints with great economic power. As a result, its foreign policy can range from isolation to global domination. This unusual situation calls for a multiplicity of approaches to interpreting its foreign policy, and for paying special attention to the role of ideas in decision-making. To navigate this complexity, the course is structured around three complementary objectives. First, it will explore or revisit the basic elements of the historical record and the decision-making mechanisms in American diplomacy. Second, it will examine the major historical and theoretical interpretations of U.S. global engagement, ranging from imperialism and cyclical movements to economic, sectional and cultural approaches. Third, students will contribute to an exercise in mapping contemporary American foreign policy debates in order to gain a deeper understanding of how Washington works. By marrying institutional practice, intellectual history, and critical analysis with the granular exploration of contemporary debates in the Trump era, this course equips students to understand how American foreign policy is imagined, constructed, and executed on the world stage.