The United States has been marked by a highly politicized and divisive history of foreign policy-making. Why do the nation's leaders find it so difficult to define the national interest? Peter Trubowitz offers a new and compelling conception of American foreign policy and the domestic geopolitical forces that shape and animate it. Foreign policy conflict, he argues, is grounded in America's regional diversity. The uneven nature of America's integration into the world economy has made regionalism a potent force shaping fights over the national interest. As Trubowitz shows, politicians from different parts of the country have consistently sought to equate their region's interests with that of the nation. Domestic conflict over how to define the "national interest" is the result. Challenging dominant accounts of American foreign policy-making, Defining the National Interest exemplifies how interdisciplinary scholarship can yield a deeper understanding of the connections between domestic and international change in an era of globalization.

This collected volume presents research focusing on the interaction of domestic, foreign, and transnational actors in the process of the construction of national interests. The contributors concentrate on the extent to which the role of non-state actors has strengthened the formulating of national interests of the Slovak Republic in the post-integration period. The book addresses academic readers as well as everyone interested in Slovakia and its recent development.

In this cogent text, Laura Neack argues that foreign policy making, in this uncertain era of globalization and American global hegemony, revolves around seeking and maintaining power. Now in a thoroughly revised and updated edition, the book reviews both old and new lessons on how foreign policy decisions are made and executed. To make sense of these lessons, Neack employs a rich array of new and enduring international case studies organized in a set of concise, accessible chapters. Following a levels-of-analysis organization, the author considers all elements that influence foreign policy, including the role of leaders, bargaining, national image, political culture, public opinion, the media, and non-state actors.

A comparative evaluation of the varying foreign policy roles served by the development assistance programs of France, Japan, Sweden, and the United States.

The history of twentieth-century American foreign policy presents an indictment of classical and structural realism and systemic theories of international relations more generally. Examining five crucial movements of transition in American foreign policy making - before and after each of the world wars and the end of the Cold War - Shonberg argues that the national interest resides mostly in the eye of the beholder, and that the idiosyncratic perceptions, beliefs, and values of individuals are of vital importance in the policy process. Thus, America's recent experiences in global politics, interpreted through the lens of national ideology, has defined and created the ultimate shape of a new foreign policy.

"May 2009."--T.p.