Education Political Culture And Foreign Policy

Provides a provocative examination of the interplay between political culture and educational policy. The goal is to provide a better understanding of how different countries are responding to the global exchange of policy ideas that includes 'the standards movement' and 'new public management' or accountability in the public sector.

From one of our leading experts on foreign policy, a full-scale reinterpretation of America’s dealings—from its earliest days—with the rest of the world. It is Walter Russell Mead’s thesis that the United States, by any standard, has had a more successful foreign policy than any of the other great powers that we have faced—and faced down. Beginning as an isolated string of settlements at the edge of the known world, this country—in two centuries—drove the French and the Spanish out of North America; forced Britain, then the world’s greatest empire, to respect American interests; dominated coalitions that defeated German and Japanese bids for world power; replaced the tottering British Empire with a more flexible and dynamic global system built on American power; triumphed in the Cold War; and exported its language, culture, currency, and political values throughout the world. Yet despite, and often because of, this success, both Americans and foreigners over the decades have routinely considered American foreign policy to be amateurish and blundering, a political backwater and an intellectual wasteland. Now, in this provocative study, Mead revisits our history to counter these appraisals. He attributes this unprecedented success (as well as recurring problems) to the interplay of four schools of thought, each with deep roots in domestic politics and each characterized by a central focus or concern, that have shaped our foreign policy debates since the American Revolution—the Hamiltonian: the protection of commerce; the Jeffersonian: the maintenance of our democratic system; the Jacksonian: populist values and military might; and the Wilsonian: moral principle. And he delineates the ways in which they have continually, and for the most part beneficially, informed the intellectual and political bases of our success as a world power. These four schools, says Mead, are as vital today as they were two hundred years ago, and they can and should guide the nation through the challenges ahead. Special Providence is a brilliant analysis, certain to influence the way America thinks about its national past, its future, and the rest of the world.

The first edition of Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy is one of the most successful Brookings titles of all time. This thoroughly revised version updates that classic analysis of the role played by the federal bureaucracy—civilian career officials, political appointees, and military officers—and Congress in formulating U.S. national security policy, illustrating how policy decisions are actually made. Government agencies, departments, and individuals all have certain interests to preserve and promote. Those priorities, and the conflicts they sometimes spark, heavily influence the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. A decision that looks like an orchestrated attempt to influence another country may in fact represent a shaky compromise between rival elements within the U.S. government. The authors provide numerous examples of bureaucratic maneuvering and reveal how they have influenced our international relations. The revised edition includes new examples of bureaucratic politics from the past three decades, from Jimmy Carter's view of the State Department to conflicts between George W. Bush and the bureaucracy regarding Iraq. The second edition also includes a new analysis of Congress's role in the politics of foreign policymaking.

"A Culture of Deference is filled with revelations about both Congress and American foreign policy. The author traces the development of a set of norms and beliefs - "a culture of deference" - that has confined Congress to the margins of power and caused American interests to suffer around the globe. A legacy of fifty years of hot and cold war, this powerful but often unseen web of internal customs helps generate bipartisan obeisance to the president as well as to narrow-based "special interests."" "The book portrays the workings of this phenomenon in the Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton admistrations via fresh analyses of Congress and U.S. policy regarding El Salvador, Angola, Nicaragua, Zaire, Iraq, Bosnia, and Somalia. Weissman also shows how exceptional bipartisan leadership and emergent broadbased political constituencies occasionally enable Congress to transcend its predominant culture."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In light of the United States' "age of terrorism" and the controversial involvement in the war in Iraq, U.S. policies toward diplomatic peace education are coming under increasing scrutiny. This book evaluates the prospects for effective U.S. peace education in the context of post-1945 U.S. foreign policy. The work first documents the disparity between U.S. pronouncements about protecting human rights and the country's systematic erosion of those rights in the international arena. Second, it evaluates the challenges that the war on terrorism poses for peace education and explores the importance of international treaties in upholding security. A final section explores new ways of thinking and relating that are ultimately necessary for the realization of nonviolent peacekeeping efforts. Designed as a resource text for U.S. educators, the text offers concrete proposals for addressing contentious foreign policy issues in the classroom and includes an appendix of primary documents and sample questions for easy use.

A fresh analysis of the study of American foreign relations history, this book shows the ways in which international education has shaped the US relationship with the world.