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The Bifurcation of American and Non-American Perspectives in Foreign Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

Ole R. Holsti
Ole R. Holsti*
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Extract

The bifurcation of American and non-American perspectives in foreign policy analysis is a large topic to which justice cannot be done in limited space. To reduce the subject to somewhat more manageable scope, the focus here is on teaching and. more specifically, on undergraduate courses on American foreign policy. After examining some evidence that might shed light on the question, this essay will suggest some reasons, both within and outside the discipline, for this development, as well as some possible ways of avoiding undue parochialism by ensuring that non-American perspectives get some hearing.

This is not the place to undertake extensive content analyses of foreign policy texts, but even a cursory glance at several recent, widely used volumes indicates that many students are exposed almost wholly to American perspectives. Materials cited in footnotes and as suggested readings are overwhelmingly written by American authors. That pattern also extends to three of the best recent collections of readings on American foreign policy. The first includes 32 essays, not one of which is by a non-American, all nine chapters in the second are by Americans, and only one of 12 essays in the third is co-authored by a foreign scholar. In fairness, it should be pointed out that these materials hardly present a homogeneous viewpoint on the sources, conduct, and consequences of American diplomacy; a collection of readings that includes essays by George Kennan, Carl Gershman, Henry Kissinger, and Stanley Hoffmann can hardly be accused of presenting a single outlook. Moreover, the diversity of choices among available texts provides a broad range of perspectives, from moderately hard-line to distinctly revisionist.

Type
Political Science: Bridging the Fields
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , Summer 1984 , pp. 553 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1984

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Joseph Grieco and Timothy Lomperis for providing useful comments on an earlier draft of this essay.

References

1 May, Ernest R., “Writing Contemporary History,” Diplomatic History VIII (Spring 1984), 103–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Snyder, Richard C., Bruck, H. W. and Sapin, Burton, Foreign Policy Decision Making (New York: Free Press, 1962).Google Scholar This book is based in large part on a monograph originally published in 1954.

3 Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976)Google Scholar; and Steinbruner, John D., The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Janis, Irving, Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982).Google Scholar The first edition was published in 1972 under the title, Victims of Groupthink.

5 Neustadt, Richard, Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Halperin, Morton H., Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1974)Google Scholar; and Allison, Graham, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1971).Google Scholar

6 For example, Paige, Glenn D., The Korean Decision (New York: Free Press, 1968)Google Scholar; and Allison, op. cit.

For a fuller discussion of American domination of the discipline, see Holsti, K. J., The Dividing Discipline: Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory (London: Allen & Unwin, in press).Google Scholar

7 Rosenau, James N., “Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in Farrell, R. Barry (ed.), Approaches to Comparative and International Politics (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966), p. 48.Google Scholar

8 For example, Barnet, Richard, Roots of War (New York: Atheneum, 1972)Google Scholar; Kolko, Gabriel, The Roots of American Foreign Policy: An Analysis of Power and Purpose (Boston: Beacon, 1969)Google Scholar; and Alperovitz, Gar, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965).Google Scholar

9 For a further discussion, see Quester, George, American Foreign Policy: The Lost Consensus (New York: Praeger, 1982)Google Scholar; and Holsti, Ole R., “The Study of International Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows: Theories of the Radical Right and Left,” American Political Science Review LXVIII (March 1974), 217–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Eight of the 26 included courses that deal with the policies of more than a single nation (e.g., “Foreign Economic Policies of Advanced Industrial States,” or “East Asian International Relations”), but only two offered courses entitled “Comparative Foreign Policy.”

11 Neustadt, op. cit. Allison's study of the Cuban missile crisis (op. cit.) also deals with Soviet decisions, but necessarily on the basis of relatively limited data. Neustadt, on the other hand, had access to substantial information, based on interviews and other evidence, concerning British decision making during the Suez and Skybolt episodes.

12 On this point, see Most, Benjamin A. and Starr, Harvey, “International Relations Theory, Foreign Policy Substitutability, and ‘Nice’ Laws,” World Politics XXXVI (April 1984), 383–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar