Area Politics C (Current American Politics)

Faculty

T. Igarashi

Description

George W . Bush administration’s decision to start the Iraq War in 2003 provoked anti-American movements throughout the world and generated the concerns with the rising  “ American Empire. ”  However, it is necessary to understand why Bush administration initiated the war from the broader perspective, referring to great changes in the current world called globalization . The globalization rapidly accelerated movements of people, commodity, money, information and so on across the national borders. Bush administration’s war was partly a response to such current world situations, although it still seemed to have options other than wars.

One of the important characteristics of the current globalization is it is greatly promoted by the United States itself through not only its capitalism, but also its technological innovation, mass culture, national values such as democracy and human rights, and so on.

This lecture will begin by explaining national characteristics of the United States, as a crucial element of the globalization, comparing especially with those of Japan, which are more different from each other than Japanese people usually expect.

Then, it will deal with the transformation of the U. S. political economical system from the New Deal system to Republican Revolution begun by Reagan administration in the 1980’s, referring to the changes of policy processes caused by factors such as economic decline, emergence of social issues, changing styles of lobbying and Republican ascendancy in the party politics.

Such domestic changes also brought transformations of U.S. foreign policy, in addition to the end of the Cold War. The lecture will explain how Reagan administration accelerated the end of the Cold War and what kinds of problems Clinton administration’s policies had, examining those policies toward the Middle East, other regional disputes and currency crises. Current policies of Bush administration were originally based on Republican’s criticism of Clinton administration’s foreign policies.

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