U.S. Foreign Policy

 

Politics and Government 330

Instructor:  Michael Clancy
United States Foreign Policy Office: Hillyer 123c
University of Hartford Fall 2009
Tuesday: 5-7:20 Phone: 768-4284
E-mail me Office Hours: T/Th 11-12 and by appt.

 

Class Schedule
Week 1  
9/1
 Introduction: No Reading
 
Explanatory Frameworks and Historical Background
Week 2  
9/8
 Explanatory Models of Foreign Policy
Case: Treverton, "Covert Action in Chile"
Halstead, American Foreign Policy, pp. 1-11
*Laura Neak, The New Foreign Policy, 2d ed., pp. 14-19
*Stephen M. Walt, Taming American Power, ch. 1
Week 3
  
9/15
 Styles and Ideology
  Halstead, ch. 3
Bacevich, The New American Militarism, chs. 1-3
*Michael Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy, ch. 1; excerpts 
Week 4  
9/22
From Isolationism to Globalism
  Halstedt, pp. 77-83
*Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and how it Changed the World, pp. 3-29
*Bruce Jentlesen, American Foreign Policy, ch. 3
Week 5  
9/29
The Cold War and After
Halstedt, pp. 4-16, 83-100
*X "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs, 65, 1947
*John Dumbrell, "America in the 1990s: Searching for a Purpose" in Cox and Stokes
 
Domestic Actors and the Policy Process
Week 6  
10/6
The President and Advisors
 

Hastedt, ch. 7
*Michael Nelson, "Person and Office: Presidents, the Presidency and Foreign Policy," ch. 9 in W&M
Kakutani, review of Peter Rodman's Presidential Command: Power, Leadership and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush
Case: Brussel, "The Cuban Missile Crisis"

Midterm distributed

Week 7  
10/13
   Midterm Due on 10/11
Presidential Advisors/Executive Bureaucacy
  Hastedt, chs 9-10
I.M Desteler, "Jonestown: Will Obama's National Security Council be 'Dramatically Different?'" Foreign Affairs, April 30, 2009
"Turf Battles on Intelligence Pose Test for Spy Chiefs," New York Times
Bacevich, The New American Militarism, ch. 6
Week 8  
10/20
 Congress
  Hastedt, ch. 8
Case: Auger: The War Powers Resolution and U.S. Policy in Lebanon
*James Lindsay, "From Deference to Activism and Back again: Congress and the Politics of American Foreign Policy"
Week 9  
10/27
 Public Opinion and the Media
Halstedt, pp. 114-130
Bacevich, The New American Militarism, ch. 4
"Baghdad Confidential: Strung Out Stringers,"Mother Jones
Week 10  
11/3
 Elections and Interest Groups
  Halstedt, 130-52
Bacevich, The New American Militarism, ch. 5
Mearshimer and Walt, "The Israel Lobby" London Review of Books 2006
 
Foreign Policy in Action
Week 11  
11/10
 Simulation
Week 12  
11/17
 Simulation
  also debrief: possible extra session on happy hour, 11/19
Week 13  
11/24
 Thanksgiving week
  No class
Week 14
  
12/1
Security
  Bacevich, The New American Militarism, remainder
Cohen, "The Making of an Iran Policy," New York Times Sunday Magazine
Case: Kempton and Rossow, "The Extraordinary Rendition of Abu Omar"
Week 15  
12/8
 Economy/Environment
  Hastedt, pp. 354-6
Burrows and Harris, "Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis," The Washington Quarterly, April 2009
Pemberton, "Military vs. Climate Security: Mapping the Shift from the Bush Years to the Obama Era" Foreign Policy in Focus (read executive summary)
  Take-Home Final Exam Distributed

 

 
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