CQ Press Contemporary American Foreign Policy: Influences, Challenges, and Opportunities

In each chapter, the authors focus on today′s most pressing contemporary challenges, exploring their origins and backgrounds. They systematically shed light on the competing forces that influence them, outline the various policy options available to decision makers for addressing them, and explore the potential consequences of those policies. Throughout, they also look at foreign policy at all levels: international, society, government, "role"-specific, and individual.  Review "Mansbach and Taylor’s practical, solution-oriented approach is novel and valuable. Its use of levels of analysis for causal factors and the way that it conscientiously includes important components of the global environment often neglected in other texts are just some of the factors that set it apart." -- Alynna Lyon "Manbach and Taylor enliven the subject matter and make it relevant to current situations. Each chapter provides an effective overview of the historical context and contemporary importance of a significant foreign policy issue, providing needed perspective that combines strong scholarship and engaging writing." -- James Seroka "Mansbach and Taylor provide a thoroughly up-to-date, useful pedagogical tool for studying and learning about U.S. foreign policy. Contemporary American Foreign Policy is particularly strong in its assessments of the opportunities and constraints relative to various foreign policy options presented to the American Foreign Policy Establishment. Its strongest assets lie in its incorporation of an issue areas–approach to foreign affairs and in its various case studies." -- Matt Caverly "Mansbach and Taylor present a timely, comprehensive, and engaging text, involving readers in the evaluation of each policy by showing positive and negative outcomes, as well as policy alternatives and approaches for analysis.  Contemporary American Foreign Policy will be attractive to both upper division and lower division undergraduates alike." -- Martha Cottam About the Author Richard W. Mansbach (BA Swarthmore College, DPhil Oxford University) is a former Marshall Scholar and three-time Fulbright Scholar. He has authored, co-authored, or edited seventeen books and numerous articles and book chapters largely concerning theory in global politics and foreign policy. His scholarship has extended our understanding of global politics beyond the traditional notion of territorial states interacting in an anarchic system to encompass a wide variety of actors complexly related across a variety of issues. Increasingly, his work has moved from the dominant role of “states” in international relations theory to encompass a changing cast of actors in a globalizing world and toward the concept of “identity” and the role of psychological, as opposed to geographic, distance in determining loyalties and behavior. His scholarship focuses on the critical role of history and norms in understanding change and continuity in global politics and in the movement from pre-international to international and, ultimately, post-international politics in a globalizing world. Among his books several are routinely used in major graduate programs, notably, The Web of World Politics, In Search of Theory: Toward a New Paradigm for Global Politics, The Elusive Quest:  Theory and International Politics, Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change, The Elusive Quest Continues: Theory and Global Politics, Remapping Global Politics, Globalization: The return of borders to a borderless world?. In addition, Professor Mansbach was the co-editor of the field’s flagship journal International Studies. He has also served as department chair at Rutgers University (New Brunswick) and at Iowa State University. Kirsten Taylor (BA University of Pittsburgh, PhD McGill University) is Associate Professor and Department Chair of Government and International Studies at Berry College, a private liberal arts college in Northwest Georgia. Her