The Ashgate Research Companion to US Foreign Policy

This comprehensive volume on the past, present and future formulation and implementation of American foreign policy is targeted at a diverse audience to include scholars and public policy practitioners both within, and outside of, the United States. In particular, it will serve as a useful resource for scholars and students of American foreign policy, whether historians or political scientists, as well as members of the general public with an interest in the US role in the post-11 September 2001 world.The volume includes 23 chapters, which are distributed among four sections focusing on American foreign policy from both historical and political scientific analytical perspectives. The sections are designed to provide a range of interpretations of the topic such that, by book's end, the reader will have a clear knowledge of the academic and policy debates that define the field. They unfold in the following manner:The five chapters in the first section address the formulation and implementation of US foreign policy from both temporal and issue-specific perspectives.The five chapters in the second section examine a range of political scientific approaches to, and theories on, the conduct of US foreign policy, including realism/neo-realism, idealism/neo-liberal institutionalism and constructivism.The seven chapters in the third section focus on US foreign policy in a regional format, with coverage ranging from Latin America and Europe to Middle East and Asia.The six chapters in the fourth section address the present and future of US foreign policy, placing an emphasis on the extent to which strains of continuity and change have characterized America's approach to global affairs since the events of 9/11.Above all, the volume is designed as a research guide that will both inform readers on the basics of US foreign policy from historical and political scientific perspectives and provide a look ahead at the means through which American policymakers will attempt to meet the future in an increasingly complex international system.