Foreign Policy Advocacy and Entrepreneurship shows how new and dynamic leaders in Congress are becoming highly influential in policymaking. Capturing the spirit of change in Washington, DC, it explores original case studies of eight US policymakers who challenged authority during the Obama administration—from war veterans and fundamentalist Christian activists to former spies and minority legislators. Newly elected representatives in both parties dove into issues that sometimes seemed well beyond the interests of their constituents and that defied their own party leadership. Setting the course for a new generation of lawmakers, junior entrepreneurs studied here employed a combination of formal legislative strategies for successful influence and informal networking, policy narratives, and communication strategies. While some congressional initiatives have succeeded in changing US foreign policy and others have failed, committed entrepreneurs appear to be gaining greater influence over US foreign policy in the polarized atmosphere of Washington, DC. Cases of entrepreneurship by junior members of Congress represent a puzzle for traditional foreign policy studies that focus on seniority, party discipline, and rigid institutional systems on Capitol Hill. By melding entrepreneurship and policy advocacy literature, this book advances a new typology of foreign policy entrepreneurship, recognizing the impact of multidimensional strategies of influence. The arrival of new members of the 116th Congress, the most diverse in history, provides an exciting laboratory to further test these propositions.

Foreign Policy Advocacy and Entrepreneurship shows how new and dynamic leaders in Congress are becoming highly influential in policymaking. Capturing the spirit of change in Washington, DC, it explores original case studies of eight US policymakers who challenged authority during the Obama administration—from war veterans and fundamentalist Christian activists to former spies and minority legislators. Newly elected representatives in both parties dove into issues that sometimes seemed well beyond the interests of their constituents and that defied their own party leadership. Setting the course for a new generation of lawmakers, junior entrepreneurs studied here employed a combination of formal legislative strategies for successful influence and informal networking, policy narratives, and communication strategies. While some congressional initiatives have succeeded in changing US foreign policy and others have failed, committed entrepreneurs appear to be gaining greater influence over US foreign policy in the polarized atmosphere of Washington, DC. Cases of entrepreneurship by junior members of Congress represent a puzzle for traditional foreign policy studies that focus on seniority, party discipline, and rigid institutional systems on Capitol Hill. By melding entrepreneurship and policy advocacy literature, this book advances a new typology of foreign policy entrepreneurship, recognizing the impact of multidimensional strategies of influence. The arrival of new members of the 116th Congress, the most diverse in history, provides an exciting laboratory to further test these propositions.

Since the advent of the contemporary US national security apparatus in 1947, entrepreneurial public officials have tried to reorient the course of the nation's foreign policy. Acting inside the National Security Council system, some principals and high-ranking officials have worked tirelessly to generate policy change and innovation on the issues they care about. These entrepreneurs attempt to set the foreign policy agenda, frame policy problems and solutions, and orient the decision-making process to convince the president and other decision makers to choose the course they advocate. In National Security Entrepreneurs and the Making of American Foreign Policy Vincent Boucher, Charles-Philippe David, and Karine Prémont develop a new concept to study entrepreneurial behaviour among foreign policy advisers and offer the first comprehensive framework of analysis to answer this crucial question: why do some entrepreneurs succeed in guaranteeing the adoption of novel policies while others fail? They explore case studies of attempts to reorient US foreign policy waged by National Security Council entrepreneurs, examining the key factors enabling success and the main forces preventing the adoption of a preferred option: the entrepreneur's profile, presidential leadership, major players involved in the policy formulation and decision-making processes, the national political context, and the presence or absence of significant opportunities. By carefully analyzing significant diplomatic and military decisions of the Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton administrations, and offering a preliminary account of contemporary national security entrepreneurship under presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, this book makes the case for an agent-based explanation of foreign policy change and continuity.

Policy entrepreneurs are energetic actors who engage in collaborative efforts in and around government to promote policy innovations. Interest in policy entrepreneurs has grown over recent years. Increasingly, they are recognized as a unique class of political actors, who display common attributes, deploy common strategies, and can propel dynamic shifts in societal practices. This Element assesses the current state of knowledge on policy entrepreneurs, their actions, and their impacts. It explains how various global forces are creating new demand for policy entrepreneurship, and suggests directions for future research on policy entrepreneurs and their efforts to drive dynamic change.

The Art of Policymaking is the only book designed to provide students and practitioners with a detailed explanation of the specific tools, techniques, and processes used to create policy in the U.S., as well as the tools they need to understand them. The book includes practical advice on how to write memos, prepare polling questions, and navigate the clearance process. Case studies show how actual policies were developed and how and why policies and processes differed across administrations. And scenarios allow students to practice the tools and techniques they have learned by working through both domestic and foreign policy situations. Written by two experts in the field with experience in both academia and government, The Art of Policymaking is the perfect how-to guide for students and professionals.

Policy entrepreneurs engage in collaborative action to promote broad societal changes. They distinguish themselves from other political actors through their willingness to promote policy innovations that are new within specific contexts. Policy Entrepreneurship: An Asian Perspective showcases an exciting collection of new research studies. Previous studies of policy entrepreneurship within specific contexts across this vast region have confirmed the explanatory power of the concept, even though the political systems under investigation are distinct from the political system in the United States, where the notion of policy entrepreneurship was coined. This book is the first ever comprehensive compilation of research on policy entrepreneurship in Asia, and focused on policy change in China, India, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. All the studies gathered here assess the agency of policy entrepreneurs within broader structures that present them with both opportunities and constraints. In their different ways, each chapter explores how structural changes, specific strategies used by policy entrepreneurs, and the practice of boundary spanning shape policy agendas. The scholarship on display offers an inspiring treasure trove of ideas, insights, concepts, and research strategies. This book will prompt newer scholarship on policy entrepreneurs and the crucial role they play in contemporary politics, in Asia and globally. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Asian Public Policy.

Despite the passage of NAFTA and other recent free trade victories in the United States, former U.S. trade official Alfred Eckes warns that these developments have a dark side. Opening America's Market offers a bold critique of U.S. trade policies over the last sixty years, placing them within a historical perspective. Eckes reconsiders trade policy issues and events from Benjamin Franklin to Bill Clinton, attributing growing political unrest and economic insecurity in the 1990s to shortsighted policy decisions made in the generation after World War II. Eager to win the Cold War and promote the benefits of free trade, American officials generously opened the domestic market to imports but tolerated foreign discrimination against American goods. American consumers and corporations gained in the resulting global economy, but many low-skilled workers have become casualties. Eckes also challenges criticisms of the 'infamous' protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which allegedly worsened the Great Depression and provoked foreign retaliation. In trade history, he says, this episode was merely a mole hill, not a mountain.