David M. McCourt – författare

After the Cold War, America's leaders hoped Russia and China could be integrated into the rules-based international order and might even become more like the West. By the late 2010s, their optimism was dead. In The End of Engagement, David M. McCourt traces the intense personal, professional, and policy struggles over China and Russia in U.S. foreign policy since 1989. Drawing on 200 original interviews with America's China and Russia experts--from former policymakers and diplomats to prominent think tankers and academics--McCourt chronicles the rise and recent fall of "engagement" with Beijing and Moscow. While there are numerous explanations for why America moved away from engagement with China and Russia in the last decade, McCourt shows that none consider how important foreign policy knowledge communities have been in impacting policy. Adopting a unique, sociological perspective, this book offers an intimate look into the world of America's national security experts as they have struggled to make sense of changes in China and Russia and the remaining question of what comes next.

After the Cold War, America's leaders hoped Russia and China could be integrated into the rules-based international order and might even become more like the West. By the late 2010s, their optimism was dead. In The End of Engagement, David M. McCourt traces the intense personal, professional, and policy struggles over China and Russia in U.S. foreign policy since 1989. Drawing on 200 original interviews with America's China and Russia experts--from former policymakers and diplomats to prominent think tankers and academics--McCourt chronicles the rise and recent fall of "engagement" with Beijing and Moscow. While there are numerous explanations for why America moved away from engagement with China and Russia in the last decade, McCourt shows that none consider how important foreign policy knowledge communities have been in impacting policy. Adopting a unique, sociological perspective, this book offers an intimate look into the world of America's national security experts as they have struggled to make sense of changes in China and Russia and the remaining question of what comes next.

After decades of optimism, elites in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom have reframed the People's Republic of China as a long-term competitor.The Dragon Defined: How Washington, Canberra, and London Reimagined China explains this shift as a hegemonic field effect: an emergent political and ideological alignment shaped by American global influence since 2016. From this perspective, the United States, Australian, and United Kingdom's responses to China's rise are at once country-specific-China looks very different from Washington, Canberra, and London-yet reflect the contemporary dynamics of American hegemony, where political priorities and modes of knowing friends, rivals, and enemies are exported to those in its hegemonic orbit. In Washington, a vibrant and expanding think tank space, coupled with an open door to government, creates an intense struggle over the framing of issues like China, reflected in a sharp turnover from Engagement to Strategic Competition after the election of Donald Trump. The smaller Australian and UK security fields display unique changes in China strategy, yet they have increasingly aligned with the US on China's rise. As canaries in the coalmine" of East Asia, Australia's leaders have had an outsized effect on US strategic thinking. Drawing on over 250 original interviews with former diplomats, strategists, and academics across the three countries--and melding constructivist approaches to International Relations with the sociology of expertise--The Dragon Defined: How Washington, Canberra, and London Reimagined China offers a theoretically innovative and thickly descriptive account of the politics of China knowledge in Washington, Canberra, and London.

After decades of optimism, elites in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom have reframed the People's Republic of China as a long-term competitor.The Dragon Defined: How Washington, Canberra, and London Reimagined China explains this shift as a hegemonic field effect: an emergent political and ideological alignment shaped by American global influence since 2016. From this perspective, the United States, Australian, and United Kingdom's responses to China's rise are at once country-specific-China looks very different from Washington, Canberra, and London-yet reflect the contemporary dynamics of American hegemony, where political priorities and modes of knowing friends, rivals, and enemies are exported to those in its hegemonic orbit. In Washington, a vibrant and expanding think tank space, coupled with an open door to government, creates an intense struggle over the framing of issues like China, reflected in a sharp turnover from Engagement to Strategic Competition after the election of Donald Trump. The smaller Australian and UK security fields display unique changes in China strategy, yet they have increasingly aligned with the US on China's rise. As canaries in the coalmine" of East Asia, Australia's leaders have had an outsized effect on US strategic thinking. Drawing on over 250 original interviews with former diplomats, strategists, and academics across the three countries--and melding constructivist approaches to International Relations with the sociology of expertise--The Dragon Defined: How Washington, Canberra, and London Reimagined China offers a theoretically innovative and thickly descriptive account of the politics of China knowledge in Washington, Canberra, and London.

?Though Britain’s descent from global imperial power began in World War II and continued over the subsequent decades with decolonization, military withdrawal, and integration into the European Union, its foreign policy has remained that of a Great Power. David M. McCourt maintains that the lack of a fundamental reorientation of Britain’s foreign policy cannot be explained only by material or economic factors, or even by an essential British international “identity.” Rather, he argues, the persistence of Britain’s place in world affairs can best be explained by the prominent international role that Britain assumed and into which it was thrust by other nations, notably France and the United States, over these years.Using a role-based theory of state action in international politics based on symbolic interactionism and the work of George Herbert Mead, Britain and World Power since 1945 puts forward a novel interpretation of Britain’s engagement in four key international episodes: the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Skybolt Crisis of 1962, Britain’s second application to the European Economic Council in 1966–67, and Britain’s reinvasion of the Falklands in 1982. McCourt concludes with a discussion of international affairs since the end of the Cold War and the implications for the future of British foreign policy.

Between December 1953 and June 1954, the elite think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) joined prominent figures in International Relations, including Pennsylvania’s Robert Strausz-Hupé, Yale’s Arnold Wolfers, the Rockefeller Foundation’s William Thompson, government adviser Dorothy Fosdick, and nuclear strategist William Kaufmann. They spent seven meetings assessing approaches to world politics—from the “realist” theory of Hans Morgenthau to theories of imperialism of Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin—to discern basic elements of a theory of international relations.The study group’s materials are an indispensable window to the development of IR theory, illuminating the seeds of the theory-practice nexus in Cold War U.S. foreign policy. Historians of International Relations recently revised the standard narrative of the field’s origins, showing that IR witnessed a sharp turn to theoretical consideration of international politics beginning around 1950, and remained preoccupied with theory. Taking place in 1953–54, the CFR study group represents a vital snapshot of this shift.This book situates the CFR study group in its historical and historiographical contexts, and offers a biographical analysis of the participants. It includes seven preparatory papers on diverse theoretical approaches, penned by former Berkeley political scientist George A. Lipsky, followed by the digest of discussions from the study group meetings. American Power and International Theory at the Council on Foreign Relations, 1953–54 offers new insights into the early development of IR as well as the thinking of prominent elites in the early years of the Cold War.

In this engaging book, David M. McCourt makes the case for New Constructivist approaches to international relations scholarship. The book traces constructivist work on culture, identity, and norms within the historical, geographical, and professional contexts of world politics, and reflects on recent innovations in fields including practice theory, relationalism, and network analysis. Copiously illustrated with real-world examples from the rise of China and US foreign policy, it illuminates the processes by which international politics are built. This is both an accessible tour of Constructivism to date and a persuasive declaration for its continuing application and value.