Isolation and Engagement: Presidential Decision Making on China from Kennedy, to Nixon

September 9, 2024

Meet VCU Authors: William Newmann, PhD

Start time: 12:00 p.m.

End time: 1:00 p.m

Location: Virtual

Registration will be available soon.

 

In this lecture, William Newmann looks at how presidents manage the advisory process for foreign policy decision making. What often seems like chaos has real patterns to it, patterns that repeat themselves in many administrations.  These patterns allow us to develop theories on how decision making works.

Based on his book, Isolation and Engagement: Presidential Decision Making on China from Kennedy to Nixon, Newmann focuses on the Evolution-Balance Model in the foreign policy decision making of presidents Kenendy, Johnson, and Nixon toward China.

About the Author

William W. Newmann, PhD is a Professor in the Political Science Department of Virginia Commonwealth University.  He has been at VCU since 1992. His research interests include the US Presidency, US national security policy and policy making, and East Asian security.  He has published Managing National Security Policy: The President and the Process (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003) as well as Isolation and Engagement: Presidential Decision Making on China from Kennedy to Nixon (University of Michigan Press, 2022). He teaches courses on the US Presidency, US Foreign Policy, US National Security, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Asian Politics, International Political Economy, Comparative National Security Policy, and International Relations.