Domestic sources of US foreign policy in the post-Soviet era

elective monographs
foreign languages
general courses

Students will be given the opportunity to learn why the U.S. government made key foreign policy decisions over four decades and how domestic political interests impacted those decisions.

Remote learning
Self-reading

U.S. political leaders are often confronted with bad or uncomfortable options. It is also true that policies sometimes emerge because of the way in which complex modern governments with large bureaucracies operate. This class will examine the domestic underpinnings of the foreign policies of the last seven U.S. presidents, including their fiascoes. It will seek to explain why Congress sometimes tie the hands of the president in foreign affairs and why presidents seem to respond more to opinion polls or to what is on the television news. Students will have the opportunity to analyze a given president’s responses to specific foreign policy challenges in the context of support for, or lack thereof, for policy options.

The foreign policies and domestic political context during the administrations of:

-- Ronald Reagan

-- George H.W. Bush

-- Bill Clinton

-- George W. Bush

-- Barack Obama

-- Donald Trump

-- Joseph Biden

Blum, Rachel M. How the Tea Party captured the GOP: insurgent factions in American politics (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2020)..

Congress and diaspora politics : the influence of ethnic and foreign lobbying / edited by James A. Thurber, Colton C. Campbell, and David A. Dulio (Albany : SUNY Press, 2018).

Gries, Peter, The politics of American foreign policy: how ideology divides liberals and conservatives over foreign affairs (Stanford, CA: Stanford Security Studies, 2014).

Houghton, David Patrick, A Citizen's Guide to American Foreign Policy : Tragic Choices and the Limits of Rationality (New York, NY : Routledge, 2014).

“I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” September 5, 2018, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html.

McCormick, James M., American Foreign Policy and Process, Third Edition (F.E. Peacock, 1997).

Milner, Helen V.. and Dustin Tingley. Sailing the water's edge: the domestic politics of American foreign policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015].

Peterson, Paul E. ed., The President, the Congress, and the Making of Foreign Policy (University of Oklahoma Press, 1994).

Pitney, John J. Un-American: the fake patriotism of Donald J. Trump (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, [2020).

Think tanks, foreign policy and geo-politics : pathways to influence / edited by Donald E. Abelson, Stephen Brooks and Xin Hua. (Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017).

“Trump’s First Year: First, the Good News,” January 26, 2018, National Review, https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/01/donald-trump-first-year-accomplishments-2.

‘Why Biden’s Anti-Putin Democracy Crusade Is Failing,’ Foreign Policy, May 11, 2022,

US presidential elections and foreign policy : candidates, campaigns, and global politics from FDR to Bill Clinton / edited by Andrew Johnstone and Andrew Priest. (Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, 2017).

“Zbigniew Brzezinski and the untimely death of American statecraft,” Financial Times, May 31, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/54a7af64-4530-11e7-8d27-59b4dd6296b8.

Students should conclude the class with a basic understanding of the U.S. political system and how the foreign policy process works.

No more than two absences from class are allowed; students are expected to attend all classes, on time. Class discussion accounts for 25% of the grade; if you don't participate actively in class your grade will suffer. A final, analytical essay on a mutually agreeable topic is mandatory, to be submitted in English via email. Detailed requirements for the essay and a non-extendable due date will be announced in class.

No whining, please.