Readings in American Foreign Policy delivers a contemporary introduction to America’s role in world affairs. Serving either in a standalone capacity or as a supplementary reader for undergraduate American foreign policy courses, Hastedt’s new volume focuses on the most current problems and how to interpret them. Readings are divided into six parts and each part opens with an introductory essay providing students with a historical framework and “big picture” questions to guide comprehension. Each part incorporates a variety of sources, including not only articles from the most popular journals worldwide, but lesser known government documents and think tank pieces. By exposing students to a unique array of government policies and debates, Readings in American Foreign Policy prompts students to analyze policymaking from multiple perspectives and to develop their own strategies toward evaluating policy positions.

This book explores the recent changes in U.S. foreign policy, examines the roles that the six primary actors (the President, the Congress, the bureaucracy, non-governmental organizations, the media and the public) play in policy decisions, and assesses the potential for improvement within this system.

This thought -- provoking reader draws to 28 representative essays from major schools of thought on the forces that shape American foreign policy, providing a basis for both the explanation and evaluation of that policy. It includes four new essays tied to critical topics such as emerging democracies, executive-congressional relations civil military relations, and foreign policy decisions being driven by business interests.

Since the success of the best-selling first edition, the world has remained fascinated with US foreign policy, not least because of the far-reaching consequences of the US led invasion of Iraq. This fully updated textbook follows the events of the past two and a half years including the 2004 presidential campaign, whilst still providing a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of American foreign policy. Chapter headings include: from colony to superpower the post-Cold War decade the role of Congress the media and public opinion the US and terrorism. Examining the administrations of George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, it explains the complex interaction between the institutions of power, the key actors and the non-governmental organizations to give a complete picture of foreign policy. With a complete glossary of terms, this textbook is ideal for those studying American politics or international relations. Companion website available at: www.routledge.com/textbooks/0415358655

China’s role in international peacekeeping has greatly expanded during the leadership of Hu Jintao, and China has since become a significant contributor to peacekeeping operations (PKOs) in Africa. The importance of the book is expressed in the view that peacekeeping intervention is a tool that strengthens or fulfills policy goals in the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), and the UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). China has considerable interests at stake in Africa, in terms of promoting economic cooperation or gaining access to natural resources. In order to maintain these efforts, it is imperative that a secure and stable environment is created, not only to maintain diplomatic relations with its African partners, but also to express the harmonious worldview and peaceful development concepts, which rose to prominence under the presidency of Hu Jintao. The purpose of this book is therefore to examine the extent to which peacekeeping intervention contributes to China’s relations with these countries. Two models are employed to shed light on this thesis. The rational actor model (RAM) developed by Graham Allison is used in the first instance to explain the goals for each country, the options considered to reach the goals, the consequences or outcomes of choice that will ensure whether a particular option is chosen, and then selecting the option that has the consequences that rank the highest in the leadership’s payoff function. However, the leadership in policy formulation does not always act in a unitary fashion and often needs the input of governmental actors to produce results in decision making. Therefore, the bureaucratic politics model (BPM) of Allison is used in the second instance to indicate the bargaining, influencing and compromising positions of the bureaucracy that has reinforced the rational decisions of the leadership. The main findings are that peacekeeping interventions serve as a mechanism to facilitate cooperation, is significant to China’s goals in the mission countries, and influence and shape bargaining that occur between bureaucratic actors regarding peacekeeping.

The US-led coalition which launched an invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003 led to a decade-long military presence in the country. In the run-up to that invasion, many comparisons were made with the 1991 Gulf War. Ahmed Ijaz Malik takes these two instances of military intervention by Republican US governments to highlight how the official discourse of leaders and decision-makers has an impact on foreign policy and its results. By taking these two examples, he examines how discourse affects real events, and the extent to which the legacy of the Cold War has influenced the decisions which are made at the upper echelons of the US government. US Foreign Policy and the Gulf Wars critically analyses the post-Cold War liberal cosmopolitan and realist discourses related to these two instances of US military intervention. Using an approach which Malik labels 'critical realism', this book examines the ways in which discourses often act as ideological covers for material interests, whilst still not holding a deterministic view whereby these interests alone shape policies. From this perspective, this book assesses the themes of 'Just War', humanitarianism and cosmopolitanism. It furthermore uses the approach of 'critical realism' to engage with a variety of arguments on the emerging role of the US - as they were displayed in academic discourses and other intellectual contributions around each of the 1991 and 2003 wars. Malik relates these discussions to an analysis of the official discourses, documents and policies displayed prior to the 1991 and 2003 wars, as well as to an examination of the resulting actual conduct. Since the implications of the US military presence in the Middle East are so central to the study of International Relations and Security Studies, this book will be invaluable for specialists in these disciplines, as well as for those interested in policy formation and the wider Middle East.

Meant primarily for students studying international relations, aspirants of civil services, International Relations Today: Concepts And Applications captures the drastic changes in international relations after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991. It also examines the rise of China as a major military and economic power, and the potential of Russia, India and Germany as tomorrow's big powers. It will also be useful for those interested in the discipline.