foreign policy
This time last week, international intervention plans in Mali consisted of a rather under-powered African (ECOWAS) force, which was expected to arrive no earlier than September. This force was not backed by overpowering consensus. Nigeria and Mauritania, the two best-equipped militaries in the region, were reluctant to pledge serious troops. The United States insisted that free and fair presidential elections must precede any international intervention, even after a December coup rendered this unrealistic. And the Malian government itself seemed an obstacle. The December coup signaled the resurgence of hardliners within the junta, who claimed that the Malian military – broken and demoralized as it was – could deal with northern insurgents on its own. Tweets out of Mali (and even statements in the press) took a nationalist turn, and international intervention, even by an African force, began to seem fraught.
And now, seven days later, we’re in a brand new world.*
It bears repeating that nobody votes on foreign policy, and most folks don't know anything about it anyway (remember that a nontrivial number of Americans think South Korea is our greatest enemy). I'll quote myself:
[N]obody gives a damn about foreign policy. Theories of democratic responsiveness and empirical models of foreign policy choice need to begin with this fact. Nobody cares! That thing we do? The international relations bit? It's somewhat less important than professional bowling or HGTV. [Americans] only care about security--and their understanding of that is about as sophisticated as the Toby Keith song about the Statue of Liberty. ...
[O]ur brilliant little theories about how voters express their desires over foreign policy rest on the idea that voters have some utility over foreign-policy choices. That, in turn, may also be flatly wrong. When voters vote, their choices are likely wholly driven by domestic factors. If that's the case, there's no residual term--foreign-policy voting is in the error term. This means that foreign policy should be relatively unconstrained, both ideologically (except among a very few elites) and in its implementation (because nobody cares).
I make the same point more diplomatically and, at much greater length, in my dissertation. I should note that the professional bowling jest was an exaggeration, but foreign affairs is demonstrably less important to voting behavior than college football (e.g., e.g.. I also point out that sometimes it's okay to exaggerate for rhetorical effect.
Below the fold, I adduce new evidence that even the Council on Foreign Relations is somewhat ambivalent about foreign policy.
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The seventeenth Duck of Minerva podcast features Iver Neumann of the London School of Economics. Professor Neumann discusses his intellectual and educational background and a small part of his copious academic output. Topics incude post-structuralism, policy engagement, the practice turn, popular culture and politics, and the Mongols.
I should reiterate important change to procedures. From now on, the Minervacast feed will host mp3 versions of the podcasts. The whiteoliphaunt feed will host m4a versions of the podcast. Unless I hear otherwise, we will continue this approach into the foreseeable future. I've heard of output problems on the mp3 versions, but I can't reproduce
I've been curious why John McCain is pursuing Susan Rice with such a vengeance for her inopportune remarks on Sunday talk shows in September about the not-so spontaneous attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. As I think about other prospective nominees to lead the State Department like John Kerry, John McCain actually has more in common with Ambassador Rice.
Yes, it’s partisan, but it’s a somewhat useful deconstruction
First, I included the above video to reference a point I tried to make earlier – that Romney flip-flopped so much in the first debate that I no longer have any idea what he thinks about the big issues of campaign. I just wish I knew wth Romney wants to do with the presidency. There has to be some purpose, some reason to vote for him, and I can’t find it. Someone tell me in a few coherent, specifics-laden paragraphs why I should vote for him? Not why Obama is a bad president – I know that already – but why Romney should be president. Honestly, I don’t know, which makes his presidential run look like a vanity project or something.
Second, did anyone else think that the vice-presidential debate once again broadcast to the world that our foreign policy is dominated by the Middle East? It was all about Iran, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan. Obviously, these are all important places and issues. But it doesn’t take a lot of foreign policy training to know that Russia’s ever-more erratic course under Czar Putin, a possible euro-EU meltdown, or China are a lot more important to the US’ future than a bunch of small, poor fractured states in the Middle East. But no, let’s argue once again about Israel, Iran, terrorism, Iraq… Good grief. There are other issues out there…
I don't really want to pile on, but the question for me is: how does a major presidential candidate in the 21st century (and a
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Most of the attention paid to Ferguson's anti-Obama Newsweek cover story has focused on his mendacious and unprofessional discussion of the administration's domestic policies --
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In these summer months while we wait for the Olympics to start and for Romney to pick his VP candidate, the foreign policy cognoscenti has
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Foreign Policy just published its latest issue online. The letters section includes a response that expands on my earlier blog post calling the recent "Sex"
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Two of my posts this week (one, two) on hypothetical retrenchment under Ron Paul got a lot of traffic and comments. (H/t to Stephen Walt
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After reading the FP special 'sex' issue this week I had the strangest feeling. It was like I woke up and it was 1991 and
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Photo courtesy of Conflict CupcakeTo be fair, despite all the criticism, Foreign Policy's "Sex Issue" got a few things right. For an all-too rare moment,
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Here are parts one and two, where I argued that there is no constituency in the US for the pivot, and that Asia is so
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This is my Asian pivot.Here is part one, where I argued that there is no constituency in the US to support an Asian pivot besides
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I found this image here. So the US pivot toward Asia is all the rage in foreign policy now. Obama and Secretary Clinton genuinely
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<img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('bb5de15d-7c15-4871-a2cc-6763366de6e7'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-W1vOumSW7Og/T1A4_HIYJyI/AAAAAAAAAGk/26F_nfPYPEE/videof869ee43bf33%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" />I guess if you speak a foreign language, you’re a traitorHere were my first,
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Timing is everything; I'm not sure its good to be publishing a paper about strategic narratives just as the US cuts its Advisory Commission on
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We have gone almost a month without talking about zombies, and you all must be in need of a fix. Instead of thinking how various
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George Gallup - what have you started?
The traditional methods for a state to know what overseas publics are thinking are changing. Instead of relying
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