Browsing by Subject "American foreign policy"
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Item American military presence abroad: trends and analsysis(2015-12-04) Stravers, Andrew Joel; McDonald, Patrick J., 1973-; Findley, MichaelThis paper examines one basic question: what explains trends in American military deployments abroad? In other words, why does the U.S. military establish a non- combat presence in particular countries and at particular times? Scholars have posited two main answers to this question. First, many authors consider basing a purely strategic consideration rooted in Great Power rivalries, weapons technology, and polarity. Second, research since the Cold War has mainly considered basing within the context of the regime structure of the host country, with some regime types (democracies) better suited as basing partners than others. This paper examines time series cross-sectional statistical evidence for each, and it concludes that while each strain of thought provides valuable contributions to our understanding of basing trends, none fully explain American basing outcomes. I propose a theory in which the main driver of basing trends comes from within the United States. In other words, domestic political considerations within the American system of government best explain variations in American basing abroad. Presidential incentives, for instance, arise from a national constituency that judges him on how effectively he carries out the U.S. military’s missions. However, congressional incentives are such that individual representatives prefer to bring American forces back onto U.S. soil so that they may take advantage of the economic benefits that the troops provide to their home districts and to constrain the president’s power. As such, the long-term trend since 1950 is toward less overseas basing and more basing within the United States. Previous studies provided insights into the international determinants of American foreign basing. This study adds domestic American politics to the overall puzzle, leading to a more complete understanding of the intersection between foreign and domestic dynamics as regards the international deployment of American forces.Item Frontiers of need : humanitarianism and the American involvement in the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970(2014-12) McNeil, Brian E., 1982-; Lawrence, Mark Atwood; Toyin, Falola; Jeremi, Suri; Brands, H.W.; Borstelmann, ThomasThis dissertation focuses on American foreign policy toward the Nigerian Civil War, a conflict most famous for the images of starving women and children from the secessionist state of Biafra. In response to this unprecedented humanitarian crisis, more than 200 nongovernmental and voluntary organizations emerged in the United States alone, all calling for the U.S. government to intervene in the Nigerian Civil War. Despite this immense public pressure, policymakers in Washington were reluctant to violate Nigerian sovereignty and become involved in the conflict. This dissertation looks specifically at how American policymakers responded to this challenge from below and constructed a policy for the humanitarian problem that was designed above all to placate concerned citizens at home. By analyzing the American involvement in the Nigerian Civil War, this dissertation argues that the push for humanitarian intervention in the United States stemmed from a crisis of morality in American foreign relations during the 1960s. It reinterprets the 1960s as a period of moral crisis when many Americans questioned the morality of U.S. foreign policy and sought an alternative moral framework for America’s role in the world. For activists concerned about the Nigerian Civil War, humanitarian intervention represented a path for overcoming the perceived immorality of the Cold War. This dissertation, then, argues that humanitarian intervention abroad was primarily a domestic battle, one that revealed the fault lines of two competing conceptions of what should guide the future of American foreign policy.Item "I'm the Decider": Understanding Foreign Policy Decisions in America(2010-07-14) Snideman, Samuel S.Scholars have long been interested in how presidents make decisions in foreign policy. Often, the theories about foreign policy decision making focus on the choice to use or not use one particular foreign policy tool. Many studies often ignore or underplay the importance of domestic politics to foreign policy decisions. In this thesis, I ask how do American presidents choose which foreign policy tool to use in a given situation? I propose a domestic politics-based explanation, relying on presidential ideology, performance of the domestic economy, divided government, and the electoral clock. I use a simultaneous equations framework to model the choice between using "sticks" (i.e. military force and economic sanctions) and "carrots" (economic aid and military aid). The results provide qualified support for the domestic politics theory. Domestic politics matters for some types of foreign policy decisions but not for others. Presidential ideology and domestic economic performance condition presidential decisions to use force. Election timing is also important; presidents choose to use less politically costly foreign policy tools late in their term. The results also demonstrate that there is a connection between the decision to use military force and to use economic sanctions.Item Proliferating Security? : explaining U.S. policy towards nuclear weapon aspirants(2015-05) Krishnan, Sarat; Jones, Bryan D.; Trubowitz, Peter; Gavin, Francis; Newberg, Paula; Tulis, Jeffrey; Wolford, Scott; Workman, SamuelThe proliferation of nuclear weapons has been a critical concern of the United States since World War II. While limiting the spread of nuclear weapons was a uniform goal of American administrations, in actual practice, there was significant variability in approaches to states as they approached the threshold of weaponization or crossed it. Against allied South Korea, America used the threat of military abandonment and technology denial to force the country to curtail its nuclear ambitions. In the case of a hostile China in the 1960s, military threats were the tool of choice. Policy variability cut across the ally/opponent divide, encompassing an ambivalent acceptance of non-aligned India’s nuclear capabilities by Ford in the 1970s and an acquiescence with China’s by Reagan in the 1980s. I argue that explanations based purely on the International Structure or Domestic Politics do not sufficiently explain these outcomes. I propose a causal mechanism that shapes the U.S. response to nuclear proliferation based on two independent variables, ‘Strategic Liability’ and ‘Commercial Value’. Strategic Liability is rooted in the International System, while Commercial Value is rooted in the domestic political economy of the U.S. Strategic liability is the Executive’s perception of risk from the nuclear program of a particular state, whereas Commercial value is the Executive’s estimation of the economic importance of that state. I show how these variables act on the American Executive, privileging its role in shaping the United States’ response to a state’s attempts to develop nuclear weapon capabilities. I posit four policy outcomes based on the combination of these independent variables, which take a high or low value. I test my argument by analyzing the U.S. response to the four major cases noted above, each corresponding to a unique combination of strategic liability and commercial value.