Routledge American Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks: The Open Door since the End of the Cold War (Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy)

This book presents a novel analysis of how US grand strategy has evolved from the end of the Cold War to the present, offering an integrated analysis of both continuity and change. The post-Cold War American grand strategy has continued to be oriented to securing an ‘open door’ to US capital around the globe. This book will show that the three different administrations that have been in office in the post-Cold War era have pursued this goal with varying means: from Clinton’s promotion of neoliberal globalization to Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and Obama’s search to maintain US primacy in the face of a declining economy and a rising Asia. In seeking to make sense of both these strong continuities and these significant variations the book takes as its point of departure the social sources of grand strategy (making), with the aim to relate state (public) power to social (private) power. While developing its own theoretical framework to make sense of the evolution of US grand strategy, it offers a rich and rigorous empirical analysis based on extensive primary data that have been collected over the past years. It draws on a unique data-set that consists of extensive biographical data of 30 cabinet members and other senior foreign policy officials of each of the past three administrations of Clinton, G.W. Bush and Obama. This book is of great use to specialists in International Relations – within International Political Economy, International Security and Foreign Policy Analysis, as well as students of US Politics. Review   'Anyone wanting to understand the fundamental drivers of U.S. grand strategy needs to read this superb, path-breaking book. Extending and deepening the "Open Door" approach to explaining American policy, van Apeldoorn and de Graaff make a compelling Innenpoltik argument. They have brought the role of social forces back into the discussion of the sources of grand strategy, and their argument is graphically supported by their use of Social Network Analysis to show the interconnections between policymakers and U.S. corporate and financial elites. American Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks is a "must read" for serious students of U.S. grand strategy.' - Christopher Layne, University Distinguished Professor of International Affairs, Texas A & M University, USA 'In this bold and original work van Apeldoorn and de Graaff investigate the social sources of elite policy coordination and contestation over American grand strategy. These elites flit between between the transnational corporate sector and top-ranking national policy positions, shaping and reinforcing policy networks on the way. Van Apeldoorn and de Graaff detail how corporate elites have actively sought to influence US foreign economic policy, particularly through an Open Door strategy. This strategy has relied on elite networks to turn regulatory and trade barriers in East Asia, Europe, and North America into open doors for American capitalism. Using an astute combination of Social Network Analysis and prosopography, this fine study makes a serious advance in political economy and should be read all those interested in the nuts and bolts beneath the larger machinery of contemporary capitalism.' - Leonard Seabrooke, Professor of International Political Economy and Economic Sociology, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark 'Probing the social sources of American Grand Strategy with sophisticated network- and discourse-analytic methods, Van Apeldoorn and de Graaf make a major contribution to our understanding of international relations, the policy-planning process and the role of corporate elites as embedded agents within state-society relations. Their critical political-economy analysis unpacks the origins and trajectory of the US’s unique project of the global Open Door, deftly highlighting both change within continuity across three post-Cold War administrations. Accessible, meticulously researched and persuasive, this book se