Political Science 329: American Foreign Policy

 

Winter 2019

Monday and Wednesday 1:15-2:30

MB S1.401

 

Professor: Michael Lipson

Office: H 1225-59

Office Hours: Monday 2:45-3:45, or by appointment

Ph. 514-848-2424, ext. 2129

E-mail: michael-dot-lipson-at-concordia-dot-ca

Course web page: Access Moodle site via MyConcordia portal

 

Course Description

This course covers the sources and significance of American foreign policy, including the U.S. foreign policy-making process, the political and historical context of U.S. foreign policy decision-making, and the nature and dimensions of contemporary American power. Major theoretical and policy debates are considered.

 

Course Expectations, Requirements, and Grading

Midterm Exam (February 18)	20%
Term Paper (Due April 12)	20%
Short Essays (January 28, April 3)	10%
Final Exam (to be scheduled by exams office)	25%
Attendance and Participation (clickers)	15%
Reading quizzes	10%

                                                 

I may make adjustments to the above weightings in individual cases where a student has demonstrated improvement across the semester, or where a student fails to fulfill a requirement without a valid excuse.

 

Readings

The following materials are required for the course. They are available at for purchase at the Downtown Concordia Bookstore. If the bookstore is out of copies of the course pack, it is your responsibility to order a copy. Exams will include questions about specific assigned readings, which will count for a significant percentage of the exam grade.

 

Steven W. Hook, U.S. Foreign Policy: The Paradox of World Power 5th ed. (Washington, DC: Sage/CQ Press, 2017.)

 

John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War, revised and expanded edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.)

 

Poli 329 course pack.

 

i>Clicker2 classroom response system (available for purchase or rental).

 

In addition, students are expected to follow coverage of American foreign policy developments in the news.

 

Advice on Reading

I recommend the following excellent guide for students on how to read Political Science writing: Amelia Hoover Green (Assistant Professor, Political Science, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA), “How to Read Political Science: A Guide in Four Steps,” https://www.ameliahoovergreen.com/uploads/9/3/0/9/93091546

/howtoread.pdf. It is available on the course Moodle site.

 

Time Commitment

Section 16.1.2 of the Undergraduate Calendar states that:

 

Student academic activity is measured according to the credit system. Each credit represents a minimum of 45 hours of academic activity, including lectures, tutorials, laboratories, studio or practice periods, examinations, and personal work.

This means that, for a three-credit class such as Poli 329, you are expected to complete at least 135 hours of academic work. Subtracting lectures and the final exam leaves 90 hours of academic work outside of class. Dividing those 90 hours by 15 weeks (the semester including the exam period) amounts to six hours per week. Therefore, you are expected to spend a minimum of 6 hours per week studying outside of class for Poli 329.  

Policy on Laptops and Wireless Devices

The use of laptop computers, tablet computers, cell phones, and other wireless devices and “screens” is not permitted during class. During class, these devices must be stowed in a bag or underneath the table and out of your line of sight. Students who refuse to comply with this policy will receive a failing grade in the course.

 

Plagiarism

 

Department of Political Science Statement on Plagiarism   The Department has zero tolerance for plagiarism.   1.  What is plagiarism? The University defines plagiarism as “The presentation of the work of another person, in whatever form, as one’s own or without proper acknowledgment” (Concordia Undergraduate Calendar 2018-2019, sec. 17.10, page 55). Plagiarism is an academic offence governed by the Academic Code of Conduct. To find out more about how to avoid plagiarism, see the Concordia University Student Success Centre guidelines at:        http://www.concordia.ca/content/dam/concordia/offices/cdev/docs/writing/avoid_plagiarism.pdf   2. What are the consequences of getting caught? The Dean or an Academic Hearing Panel may impose the following sanctions on students caught plagiarizing:   Art. 21: a. Reprimand the student; b. Direct that a piece of work be re-submitted; c. Direct that the examination be taken anew; d. Enter a grade reduction for the piece of work in question or enter a grade of “0” for the piece of work in question; e. Enter a grade reduction in the course or enter a failing grade for the course; f. Enter a failing grade and ineligibility for a supplemental examination or any other evaluative exercise for the course; g. Impose the obligation to take and pass courses of up to twenty‐four (24) credits, as specified by the Dean, in addition to the total number of credits required for the student’s program. If the student is registered as an Independent student, the sanction will be imposed only if he or she applies and is accepted into a program. Art. 22: a. Any or all of the sanctions listed at Article 21; b. Impose a suspension for a period not to exceed six (6) academic terms. Suspensions shall entail the withdrawal of all University privileges, including the right to enter and be upon University premises;  c. Expulsion from the University. Expulsion entails the permanent termination of all University privileges. (Academic Code of Conduct, Undergraduate calendar 2018-2019, page 56).   Complete regulations can be found in Section 17.10 of the Undergraduate calendar.   3. See also The Political Science Department's "Resources on Avoiding Plagiarism" at:        http://mypage.concordia.ca/alcor/mlipson/01Plagiarism_Home.html

 

 

 

__________________________________

 

Schedule of Readings

You are expected to complete the readings listed below before class on the date listed. All readings other than the Hook and Gaddis texts can be found in the coursepack.

 

Lectures and readings for a given date may not cover the same topic.

 

I. Introduction

 

Introduction

 

Week 1

Monday, January 7

 

Introductory class

 

Part I: The Historical and Constitutional Foundations of U.S. Foreign Policy

 

Wednesday, January 9

 

Hook, Chapter 1: The United States in a Turbulent World, 2-26.

 

Hook Chapter 2: The Expansion of U.S. Power,” pp. 31-73.

 

Hook, “The Constitution’s Mixed Blessing” section in Chapter 4: Presidential Power (Read from bottom of page 114 to middle of page 123).

 

 

Part II: Theories of U.S. Foreign Policy

 

Week 2

Monday, January 14 Realism

 

William C. Wohlforth, “Realism and Foreign Policy,” 35-53 in Steve Smith, Amelia Hadfield, and Tim Dunne, eds., Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases, 2^nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 35-53.

 

Jeffrey Taliaferro and Robert W. Wishart, “Neoclassical Realism: Domestic Opportunities for Great Power Intervention,” in Jennifer Sterling-Folker, ed., Making Sense of International Relations Theory 2^nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Press, 2013), 47-65.

 

 

Wednesday, January 16 Liberalism

 

Andrew Moravcsik, “Liberal Theories of International Relations: A Primer,” unpublished manuscript, Princeton University, 2010. Available at: http://www.princeton.edu/~amoravcs/library/primer.doc.

 

Peter Trubowitz, “Regional Shifts and U.S. Foreign Policy,” in Michael Cox and Doug Stokes, eds., US Foreign Policy 3^rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 141-153.

 

Kevin Narizny “American Grand Strategy and Political Economy Theory,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 1-26, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.316.

 

 

Monday, January 21: DNE (Did Not Enter) withdrawal deadline: Last day to withdraw with tuition refund and course removed from record.

 

 

Week 3

 

Monday, January 21 Constructivism

 

David Hougton, “Constructivism and Foreign Policy,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.400.

 

Andrew Flibbert, “Ideas and Entrepreneurs: A Constructivist Explanation of the Iraq War,” in Kane K. Cramer and A. Trevor Thrall, eds., Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? (New York: Routledge, 2012), 73-100.

 

 

Wednesday, January 23 Foreign Policy Decision-Making

 

Janice Gross Stein, “Rational, Psychological, and Neurological Models,” in Steve Smith, Amelia Hadfield, and Tim Dunne, eds., Foreign Policy: Theory, Actors, Cases 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 130-146.

 

Hook, “Chapter 3: Dynamics of Decision Making,” pp. 76-107.

 

 

Part III: The Foreign Policy Governmental Framework

 

Week 4

Monday, January 28 The President and Foreign Policy

 

First Short Essay Assignment Due

 

Hook, Chapter 4: Presidential Power,” pp. 110-113, 123-141.

 

James Goldgeier and Elizabeth Saunders, “The Unconstrained Presidency: Checks and Balances Eroded Long Before Trump,” Foreign Affairs 97, no. 5 (September/October 2018): 144-156, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/fora97&i=984.

 

James Mann, “The Adults in the Room,” The New York Review of Books, October 26, 2017, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/10/26/trump-adult-supervision/.

 

Wednesday, January 30 Congress and Foreign Policy

 

Hook, “Chapter 5: Congress Beyond the ‘Water’s Edge,’” pp. 144-178.

 

Amanda Erickson, “How House Democrats Will Try to Reshape Trump’s Foreign Policy,” The Washington Post, November 7, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/07/democrats-control-house-now-they-want-reshape-trumps-foreign-policy/?utm_term=.4e00e76105a2.

 

 

Week 5

Monday, February 4 The Foreign Policy Bureaucracy

 

Hook, “Chapter 6: The Foreign Policy Bureaucracy,” pp. 182-221.

 

Michael Hirsh, “How to Slow-Walk a President,” foreignpolicy.com, September 7, 2018,

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/07/how-to-slow-walk-a-president-trump-mattis-resistance-white-house-woodward/.

 

 

Wednesday, February 6 The Department of Defense

 

Hook, “Chapter 10: National Security and Defense Policy,” pp. 328-367.

 

Rosa Brooks, “How the Pentagon Became Walmart,” Foreignpolicy.com, August 9, 2016,

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/09/how-the-pentagon-became-walmart-how-everything-became-war/.

 

 

Week 6

Monday, February 11 Foreign Economic Policy

 

Hook, “Chapter 11: Economic Statecraft,” pp. 370-399.

 

Douglas A. Irwin, “Trade Under Trump: What He’s Done So Far—And What He’ll Do Next,” Foreignaffairs.com Snapshot, November 6, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-11-06/trade-under-trump.

 

Ana Swanson, “Trump’s Trade War with China Is Officially Underway,” The New York Times, July 5, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/business/china-us-trade-war-trump-tariffs.html.

 

 

Part IV: The Societal Context

 

Wednesday, February 13 Public Opinion and Foreign Policy

 

Hook, “Chapter 7: Public Opinion at Home and Abroad,” pp. 224-256.

 

 

Week 7

Monday, February 18

 

MIDTERM EXAM IN CLASS

 

Wednesday, February 20 Public Opinion and the Media

 

Hook, “Chapter 8: The Impact of Mass Communications,” pp. 258--291.

 

Chaim Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas,” International Security 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004): 5-48, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/171551.

 

 

Winter Break February 25-March 1

 

 

Week 8

Monday, March 4 Social Movements, Interest Groups, and Political Culture

 

Hook, Chapter 9: Social Movements and Interest Groups, pp. 294-326.

 

Walter Russell Mead, “The Jacksonian Tradition and American Foreign Policy,” The National Interest 58 (Winter 1999/2000), pp. 5-29, https://www.jstor.org/stable/42897216.

 

Walter Russell Mead, “Jacksonian Revolt: American Populism and the Liberal Order,” Foreign Affairs 96, no. 2 (March/April 2017): 2-7, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/fora96&i=228.

 

Part V: American Foreign Policy Since World War II

 

Wednesday, March 6 Origins of the Cold War

 

Geir Lundestad, “Some Old and New Theories About the Cold War,” in East, West, North, South: Major Developments in International Politics since 1945 7^th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2014), 10-12.

 

John Lewis Gaddis, “Chapter Three: Command versus Spontaneity,” in The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2007), 83-117 (in coursepack).

 

 

Week 9

Monday, March 11 George Kennan and Early Containment

 

“X” [George Kennan], “Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs 25, 4 (July 1947): 566-582.

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 1: Prologue Containment Before Kennan, 3-23.

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 2: George F. Kennan and the Strategy of Containment, 24-52.

 

 

Wednesday, March 13 Truman and Containment

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 3: Implementing Containment, 53-86.

 

 

Monday, March 18: DISC (Discontinued) withdrawal deadline: Last day for academic withdrawal from fall term courses.

 

 

Week 10

Monday, March 18 NSC-68 and the Korean War; Eisenhower and the New Look

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 4: NSC-68 and the Korean War, 87-124.

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 5: Eisenhower, Dulles, and the New Look, 125-161.

 

 

Wednesday, March 20 The New Look

           

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 6: Implementing the New Look 162-196.

 

 

Week 11

Monday, March 25 Kennedy, Johnson, and Vietnam

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 7: Kennedy, Johnson, and Flexible Response 197-234.

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 8: Implementing Flexible Response: Vietnam as a Test Case 235-271.

 

 

Wednesday, March 27 Détente

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 9: Nixon, Kissinger, and Détente 272-306.

 

 

Week 12

Monday, April 1 Détente, and the End of the Cold War

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Ch. 10: Implementing Détente 307-341.

 

Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Chapter 11: Reagan, Gorbachev, and the Completion of Containment, 342-379.

 

Wednesday, April 3 The Bush Doctrine, 9/11, and Iraq

 

Second Short Essay Due

 

Brian C. Schmidt and Michael C. Williams, “The Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War: Neoconservatives Versus Realists,” Security Studies 17, 2 (April 2008): 191-220, doi:10.1080/09636410802098990.

 

 

Week 13

Monday, April 8 The Trump Doctrine?

 

Thomas Wright, “Trump’s 19^th Century Foreign Policy,” Politico Magazine, January 20, 2016, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-foreign-policy-213546?o=0.

 

Jeffrey Goldberg, “A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch’,” Theatlantic.com, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/a-senior-white-house-official-defines-the-trump-doctrine-were-america-bitch/562511/.

 

Barry Posen, “The Rise of Illiberal Hegemony: Trump’s Surprising Grand Strategy,” Foreign Affairs 97, no. 2 (March/April 2018): 20-27, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/fora97&i=238.

 

Elizabeth N. Saunders, “Is Trump a Normal Foreign Policy President?: What We Know After One Year,”  Foreignaffairs.com Snapshot, January 18, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2018-01-18/trump-normal-foreign-policy-president.

 

Stephen Chaudoin, Helen V. Milner, and Dustin Tingley, “Down But Not Out: A Liberal International American Foreign Policy,” in Robert Jervis, Francis J. Gavin, Joshua Rovner, and Dianne Labrosse, eds., Chaos in the Liberal Order: The Trump Presidency and American Politics in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 61-97.

 

Wednesday, April 10 Challenges for Current and Future U.S. Foreign Policy

 

Kenneth A. Schultz, “Perils of Polarization for U.S. Foreign Policy,” The Washington Quarterly 40, no. 4 (Winter 2018): 7-28, doi:10.1080/0163660X.2017.1406705.

 

Graham Allison, “The Thucydides Trap,” Foreign Policy 224 (May/June 2017): 80-81.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/09/the-thucydides-trap/.

 

Michael Beckley, “To Stay Ahead of China, Stay Engaged in Asia,” Policy Brief, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, January 2012, https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/beckley_policybrief-jan-2012.pdf.

 

 

Term Paper due Friday, April 12

 

 

Final Exam Period April 16-May 5

 

The final exam will be scheduled by the exams office during the examination period.

Do not schedule travel during the exam period until you know the exam date.

On final exam scheduling, see: http://www.concordia.ca/students/exams/schedule.html.

 

 

© 2019 Michael Lipson

All rights reserved.