A List
7/13/09

SLU Prof's New Book Critical Of Bush Presidency

CANTON - An "ideological agenda" drove the development of America's foreign policy under President George W. Bush, a new book by St. Lawrence University Associate Professor of Government Karl K. Schonberg argues.

Constructing 21st-Century U.S. Foreign Policy: Identity, Ideology and Americas World Role in a New Era was published July 7 by Palgrave Macmillan. The publishers state "In the years since the 9/11 attacks, socially constructed understandings of the identity of the United States and its friends and enemies in the world have played a critical role in determining the course of U.S. foreign policy. [Schonberg's book] argues that American foreign relations under the Bush administration were driven by an ideological agenda derived from a particular interpretation of long-standing ideas about national identity. Drawing on constructivist and social-psychological international relations theory, it suggests that these ideas led directly to the administration's choice to invade Iraq, its misunderstanding the kind of war the United States would face there and its failure to quickly establish a stable democratic government following the invasion."

Schonberg, also associate dean for faculty affairs, is a graduate of Colgate University, with a master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He teaches courses in international law and organization, international security and U.S. foreign policy, and is the author of Pursuing the National Interest: Moments of Transition in 20th-Century American Foreign Policy (Praeger, 2003).

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