Isolation and Engagement: Presidential Decision Making on Foreign Policy from Kennedy to Nixon
September 9, 2024
Meet VCU Authors: William Newmann
Start time: 12:00 p.m.
End time: 1:00 p.m
Location: Virtual
Description
In this Meet VCU Authors talk, Bill Newmann looks at how U.S. 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 presidential 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 Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, primarily toward China. Join us a talk exploring the patterns in presidential foreign policy decision making, and what we can learn from analyzing these models today.
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.