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Conference paper
Abandoning strategy: Assessing negative feedback and the Bush doctrine
University of West Florida Libraries
The Politics of International Diffusion: Regional and Global Dimensions:ISA Annual Convention (San Francisco, CA, USA, 04/03/2013–04/06/2013)
2013
Abstract
This paper compares theories of grand strategy feedback by analyzing the Bush Doctrine during Bush's second term. By the time of his 2008 State of the Union address, George W. Bush had scaled back both his rhetoric and his willingness to apply assertive, unilateral pressure around the world. Why? Conventional wisdom suggests that external costs particularly related to the Iraq War--progressively constrained the administration's capacity to act. Yet theories of foreign policy and grand strategy change propose a range of other explanations for what type of feedback most profoundly affects a state's grand strategy. These include domestic political calculations, public opinion, economic interest groups, active veto players, rational analyses and systemic pressures. In order to determine which feedback source most influenced the Bush administration, I compare predicted values on each of these explanations with actual policy outcomes and debates during a series of salient decision-making periods. Findings suggest that domestic variables such as public opinion, veto players and economic interests mattered less than 1) elite perceptions of a gap between strategic goals and reality and 2) exogenous, systemic pressures. Nevertheless, the paper also concludes with a call for theory that integrates these competing explanations.
Details
- Title
- Abandoning strategy
- Resource Type
- Conference paper
- Conference
- The Politics of International Diffusion: Regional and Global Dimensions:ISA Annual Convention (San Francisco, CA, USA, 04/03/2013–04/06/2013)
- Publisher
- University of West Florida Libraries; Argo Scholar Commons
- Format
- pdf
- Number of pages
- 59
- Copyright
- Permission granted to the University of West Florida Libraries to digitize and/or display this information for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires the permission of the copyright holder.
- Identifiers
- 99380090333906600
- Academic Unit
- Reubin O'D. Askew Department of Government ; College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities
- Language
- English