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11. Wilson and the Founders: The Roots of Liberal Foreign Policy

Author:
Ted Widmer
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
We can’t do much better than reclaiming the Declaration of Independence as a fundamental foreign policy document in American history. We have a tendency to read it in a simplistic way, and to think of it only as a sort of airy declaration of what were then human rights, and a declaration of separation from England. But, in fact, the founders had a fairly well-articulated sense of what they were doing with foreign policy, and a fairly revolutionary sense of their foreign policy. So I’m quite interested in how Woodrow Wilson rediscovers the founders and makes them relevant for his time. This thinking about Wilson began for me about ten years ago when I came to be a speechwriter in the second term of Bill Clinton’s presidency. I was quite interested in which presidents were considered historically interesting to Clinton and quickly figured out it was John F. Kennedy, obviously, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. a little less obviously, and Teddy Roosevelt, who was a huge influence on Bill Clinton, and always has been. It was a time in the 1990s when a lot of very favorable books were coming out about Teddy Roosevelt, and it was an attractive time to be thinking about him. At the same time, I felt Wilson was completely ignored. I don’t remember Clinton ever talking about Wilson. In the collected speeches of Bill Clinton—it’s something like eighteen very fat volumes, the man enjoys speaking—if we looked up Wilson, I’m sure we could find a few references, but very few.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Liberalism
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

12. Wilson, Bush, and the Evolution of Liberal Foreign Policy

Author:
Tony Smith
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
The first subject to discuss in considering the future of the liberal inter- nationalist agenda is the importance of the democratization project to the definition of Wilsonianism. The second is the meaning of multilat- eralism. In the first case, Thomas Knock and Anne-Marie Slaughter argue in a forthcoming volume that democratization was never an important part of Wilsonianism; that, instead, multilateralism is the key to liberal interna- tionalism. On the basis of this argument, they come to the conclusion that the Bush Doctrine is not in the Wilsonian tradition. In my contribution to this volume,1 I object to this denigration of the place of democracy in liberal internationalism as being fundamentally illogical. Accordingly, I find the Bush Doctrine easily identifiable as Wilsonian. I argue for the centrality of democracy to the Wilsonian project because it seems clear that the microfoundations for a regime in society are critical to the ability of those states that participate in multilateral organizations to do so effectively. That is, in order to function effectively, ultimately to provide for a peaceful world order, a multilateral organization needs to be dominated by democratic states, known for their rule-abiding behavior, their transparency, predictability, and accountability. Wilson wanted the League of Nations to be a League under the control of democracies and concerned with expanding this form of government,2 but then in late February 1919 at Versailles, he abandoned that idea. From a liberal internationalist perspective, the result of the League’s character was that it was undermined not only by the failure of the United States to join, but also by the role played in it by autocratic states. It is worth adding that in his drafts of the Pan American Union some three years earlier, Wilson had also looked forward to a community of American states based on the consent of the governed. In a word, a world of peace was necessarily a world dominated by what today is often called “market democracies,” a type of social, economic, and political order that Wilson argued was fundamentally different from and better than any alternative order. In such an order the place of democratic governments was central.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Military Strategy, Leadership, and Liberalism
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

13. Wilson’s Radical Vision for Global Governance

Author:
Erez Manela
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
In recent years, Woodrow Wilson has returned to feature promi- nently in the public discourse on the role of the United States in the world. For students of U.S. foreign relations, this is hardly a sur- prising development. Wilson was responsible for articulating a vision of the U.S. role in the world—usually described as “liberal interna- tionalism”—that has remained, despite well-known flaws and scores of critics over the years, dominant in shaping American rhetoric and self-image, if not always policies, vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Competing foreign policy postures, such as isolationism or “national interest” realism, have surely been influential in particular eras and contexts. But they have failed to match the ideological and popular appeal of liberal internationalism, which has echoed so compellingly the most basic ideas many Americans hold about who they are, what their country is about, and what it should stand for in the world.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Governance, Leadership, and Liberalism
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

14. Recovering the Liberal Foreign Policy Tradition

Author:
Nick Bromell and John Tirman
Publication Date:
11-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
Over the course of the seemingly endless 2008 electoral campaign, Barack Obama chose not to formulate a coherent and distinctive foreign policy. Aside from calling for a redeployment of military resources from Iraq to Afghanistan and expressing a greater willingness to open talks with countries like Iran, he never explained to voters exactly how he would manage foreign affairs differently from John McCain or, for that matter, from George W. Bush.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Leadership, Liberalism, and Transition
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

15. U.S.-China Relations: The Case for Economic Liberalism

Author:
James A. Dorn
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In its 2005 Report to Congress, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission—also known as the U.S.-China Commission (USCC)—recommended that China appreciate its currency, the renminbi (RMB), “by at least 25 percent against the U.S. dollar” or face “an immediate, across-the-board tariff on Chinese imports.” The commission argued that such an action could be justified under Article XXI of the World Trade Organization (WTO), “which allows members to take necessary actions to protect their national security.” The key idea behind the commission’s protectionist policy stance is that “China’s undervalued currency has contributed to a loss of U.S. manufacturing, which is a national security concern” (USCC 2005: 14).
Topic:
Bilateral Relations, Economy, Trade, and Liberalism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America