1. Transcript: The Warren and Anita Manshel Lecture in American Foreign Policy by Robert O. Keohane
- Author:
- Robert O. Keohane
- Publication Date:
- 03-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Centerpiece
- Institution:
- Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- n this talk, I will revisit a question that Joe has asked in his work over the last twenty-five years: “Is the American century over?” Joe has given this question a consistently negative answer, and has recently, in a book with this title, extended his expected time frame for the American century to 2041. Before reaching this conclusion, Joe directly addressed the question that seems central to me: Will its internal cultural and political divisions decisively weaken the United States in world politics? He pointed out that “culture wars could adversely affect American power if citizens become so distracted or divided by domestic battles over social and cultural issues that the United States loses the capacity to act collectively in foreign policy” (ACO: 73). But in his answer he claimed that “past culture battles over slavery, prohibition, McCarthyism, and civil rights were more serious than any of today’s issues” (ibid). He did not expect disruption of American power as a result of internal social divisions.
- Topic:
- Nationalism, Hegemony, Geopolitics, and Populism
- Political Geography:
- United States and North America