Policy, Politics & Culture
Continuing the Conversation This is a link to the presentation I gave to a plenary panel “The Clash of Cultures and American Hegemony” (this wasn’t my title) at the American Political Science Association annual meeting in Philadelphia on Sept. 1. Sam Huntington was supposed to be on the panel but was not able to participate; other panelists were Ben Barber (Univ. of Maryland), Steve Walt (Harvard), and Jim Kurth (Swarthmore).
The logic of globalization implies that the U.S. economy will become more export-oriented, says Tyler Cowen But what does that really mean for American society and politics—especially if we succeed?
Common knowledge about the relationship between demographic pressures and economics is commonly wrong, writes Philip Auerswald. Under current, and especially future, social and technological circumstances, the more people the better.
The stakeholder model of China’s full integration into the current liberal global order fails to reckon with the worldview and political interests of the Chinese Communist Party, argues John Lee.
The U.S. exit from Afghanistan will have far-reaching strategic implications for all of Asia, says Rajan Menon. The American preoccupation with a narrow conception of these implications ill serves the U.S. national interest
Adam Garfinkle
Peter Berger
Adam Garfinkle
Adam Garfinkle
Adam Garfinkle
Adam Garfinkle
Governance, Democracy & The Role of IdeasReligion & Other CuriositiesEconomics, Etc.Economics, Etc.
Undoubtedly many adminstrative errors in application of theory have led to failures in such areas as the mid-east. Yet, rather than conceding that the administration had a coherent theory of international relations from which its policies eminated, i argued in my bachelors thesis that 2002 national security strategy, taken as a comperhensive representation of a theoretical base, lacked such coherence and was flawed by serious internal contradictions. As such, it employed principles from both the realist and the liberal internationalist tradition. It did not resolve the seemingly mutaully exclusive propositions from either side.
In short, the adminstration’s policy failures emerged from its contradictory theoretical base. As you stated in The End of History, while balance of power politics may have little relevance among post-historical states as a tool of statecraft, realism retained its relevance in dealing with the historical world. I think its safe to say that the adminstrations failures have stemmed from its failure to ackowledge the persistant relevance of realist theory in the 21st century, as well as its failure to comprehend possible social, economic or historical preconditions for democracy.