N. A. Graebner,R. D. Burns,and J. M. Siracusa,Reagan, Bush,Gorbachev: Revisiting the End of the Cold War

Faced with creating a grand strategy for American foreign policy in the post–Cold War world, the Clinton Administration launched the strategy of ‘Democratic Enlargement.’ This analysis makes two contributions to the existing literature on the topic. First, it investigates the role of Wilsonianism and the ‘Democratic Peace Thesis’ in the discourse of the strategy of ‘Democratic Enlargement’ based on public speeches with a focus on the relationship between democracy and security. Second, it utilises securitisation theory to analyse how Clinton’s Administration used the linkage of democracy and security to legitimise humanitarian interventions in Haiti and Kosovo. By addressing ‘Democratic Enlargement’ in security terms, the Administration securitised democracy promotion and, thereby, created a discourse that helped legitimise a gradual move towards a more militaristic foreign policy during Clinton’s presidency. This discourse offered arguments later utilised by the George W. Bush Administration.     

Managing Military Transformations: Agency,Culture, and the U.S. Carrier Revolution

The marketplace of ideas within a mature democracy such as the United States is supposed to fairly reliably vet foreign policies through open, wide-ranging debate. It is widely recognized that the U.S. marketplace of ideas failed during the 2002-03 debate over going to war in Iraq. Examinations of this market failure have emphasized executive powers and public fear after 9/11 as the main reasons threat inflation succeeded; I show neither explains this case. The majority opposition was silenced throughout early 2002 and ultimately defeated in a struggle over the Iraq War Resolution by pressures to be patriotic. I contend that this silencing patriotism should not be considered ordinary patriotism for a democracy as it is anti-democratic. I discuss how two critical norms of behavior which silence debate of national security policies and cause deference to the executive branch on war powers became established as part of the militarized political culture that took root in the United States during the Cold War. Thus these norms, enforced by what I term to be militarized patriotism left over from the Cold War, silenced debate over Iraq and led to the failure of the marketplace of ideas.     

Openings in the wall: transnational migrants,labor unions,and U.S. immigration policy

"This article seeks to enhance our understanding of why the United States resisted restrictionist [immigration] legislation in the late twentieth century during times when one may have expected a movement toward closure, as occurred in the 1920s.... The article will supplement a state-centric approach with insights from the perspective of complex interdependence--the significance of transnational relations and the blurring of foreign and domestic politics. I will argue that the societal groups that influence the formation of U.S. immigration policy contain a transnational component, which contributes to the maintenance of relatively open legislation.... More specifically, I will argue that the transnationalization of the labor market...blurs the boundaries between foreign and domestic constituents for unions, causing unions to resist those restrictionist immigration measures that impede organization of foreign-born workers. Hence, the pressures for restrictionism are weaker than anticipated by the conventional wisdom that expects labor to lobby for closure."     

Constructing NAFTA: Myth, Representation, and the Discursive Construction of U.S. Foreign Policy

The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in November 1993 signified the acceptance of Mexico as an equal trading partner with the United States and Canada. However, accepting Mexico as an equal partner challenged a deeply ingrained U.S. image of Mexico as inferior, childlike, dependent, and suspicious. How was it possible for the U.S. public and its congressional representatives to accept equal economic integration with a country that embodied such a negative image? Addressing this dilemma through a constructivist approach, this article argues that the existing image of Mexico remained intact. The passage of NAFTA instead resulted from a discursive construction of NAFTA that emphasized a positive U.S. self-image through American myths thereby allowing the simultaneous acceptance of Mexico as inferior and as an equal trading partner. American myths and other representational elements constructed NAFTA for the American public and created a policy success for President Clinton. This article relies on an empirical investigation of newspaper advertisements to demonstrate how myths contributed to the discursive construction of NAFTA.     

Tragedy,Realism, and Postmodernity: Kulturpessimismus in the Theories of Max Weber,E.H. Carr,Hans J. Morgenthau,and Henry Kissinger

Many realist international relations theorists characterize realism as a perspective grounded in a firm grasp of the tragic constancy of human nature and the autonomous role that power plays in human politics. Realism is thus cast in opposition to the hopeful, but often naïve, optimism of liberals who seek to steer international relations theory and ethics away from these historical realities. This paper examines the philosophical roots of theories developed by four realist thinkers, Max Weber, E.H. Carr, Hans J. Morgenthau, and Henry Kissinger, in postmodern epistemology and ethics, perspectives not often associated with constancy or notions of objective historical truths. I argue that the origin of their respective theories in Nietzschean epistemology plays a profound role in undermining their ability to develop a credible view of international ethics. Though each of them is, in his way, committed to democratic principles, their works assert an existential, private morality that is incompatible with the ethical requirements of a modern, democratic society.     

Stuck in the Middle: Taiwan's Semiconductor Industry,the U.S.-China Tech Fight,and Cross-Strait Stability

The Trump administration has worked to restrict the People's Republic of China's ability to manufacture and acquire semiconductor chips since 2018. Caught in the crossfire of this burgeoning tech war is Taiwan, which is home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer. With the United States banning companies that use U.S. technology in their chip manufacturing process from doing business with Huawei, TSMC can no longer do business with the Chinese tech company, one of its most important clients. Until the Trump administration announced the license restriction on Huawei, TSMC had managed to walk the fine line of doing business with both China and the United States, without riling either. This article argues that the TSMC example is indicative of how great power competition between the two countries will play out for the foreseeable future. TSMC has announced that it will build a new factory in Arizona as it faces Chinese firms poaching its employees and Chinese actors hacking its systems and code for trade secrets—all actions demonstrating how great power competition will play out for tech dominance. Avoiding direct live-fire conflict, China and the United States will work to restrict the other's actions and development by forcing important tech companies, such as TSMC, into picking a side.