94454 - Us Foreign Policy Since 1945

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is that students acquire an advanced knowledge on US foreign policy from 1945 until the election of Donald Trump. Examining the role of the United States within the international system, at the end of the course students will be able to: • describe the different historical phases of US foreign policy; • detect the multiple political, geopolitical and economic factors that have affected the development of US foreign policy; • analyze the transitional moments and the turning points in the evolution of US foreign policy; • understand the link between domestic and foreign policy.

Course contents

The course is organized in two parts: lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. The aim of the first part (lectures - 16 hours in remote on MS TEAMS) is that students acquire an advanced knowledge of the main tenets of US foreign policy from 1945 until the election of Donald Trump. The second part of the course with the seminars (12 hours) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussion of documents and essays/articles. For the seminar section of the course, students will be divided in two groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will do the seminar in classroom (12 hours) and another group will do the seminar remotely on MS TEAMS (12 hours), for a total of 28 hours for each student. Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the session and actively participate to the seminars also through presentations of existing scholar debates and case studies.

The course will examine the history of United States foreign relations – broadly defined – from the end of second world war to the election of Donald Trump. Examining the US role and place in the world, specific questions will be raised and discussed: what triggered the American hegemonic rise? How do we conceptualize the response to the deployment of America’s multifaceted global power? How do we investigate the connection between domestic politics and foreign policy choices?

The course will consider the impact of the political, geopolitical and economic transformations of the past century on the foreign policy choices and particular attention will be paid to specific turning points and transition moments  (i.e.: the modernization policy of the Sixties, the crisis of the Seventies, the end of the Cold War, 9/11 and the war on terrorism).
After a broad introductory lecture on the origins of United States foreign policy, the course will follow a chronological pattern. Historiographical debates and issues will also be thoroughly discussed and examined, staring from the current debate on "the end of American century.

Readings/Bibliography

Attending students:

- Andrew J. Bacevich, The Short American Century. A Postmortem, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 2012.

- Readings and documents discussed during the seminars. All the material indicated in the syllabus will be provided to students.

Not attending students:

- Andrew J. Bacevich, The Short American Century. A Postmortem, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 2012.

- Geir Lundestad, The Rise and Decline of the American "Empire": Power and its Limits in Comparative Perspective, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012

- Mary Nolan, The Transatlantic Century, Cambridge University Press, 2012

Teaching methods

Lectures and seminars

Assessment methods

Oral exam

Teaching tools

Power points

Office hours

See the website of Angela Santese