What Makes America Great? National esteem, grand strategy and intra-state ideological contest

Researcher: Dr Adam Quinn
Partners and sponsors: The Charles Koch Foundation

Overview

There is intense argument between foreign-policy intellectuals today over US grand strategy, which means America’s national aims, means of pursuing those aims, and role the world, as self-understood at the highest conceptual level. A prominent point of conflict is whether ‘liberal international order’ should be a central organising idea for US strategy.

Generally, advocates for a US strategy of liberal order posit that such an order currently exists, that it serves US interests, and that America’s objective should be to preserve or extend it. This distinguishes them, in their own account, from nationalists, who view the norms, rules and institutions of liberal order not as assets but as constraints on the effective pursuit of US interests. A grand strategy of liberal order is, however, is criticised in turn by a competing ideological subgroup – ‘realists’ – who are sceptical of the extent to which a liberal world order truly exists in practice, and believe its advocates’ overreaching ambitions lead  to costly overseas interventionism, moral hypocrisy, and self-delusion.

The project aims to understand these debates better by synthesising elements of existing literatures on status, identity, ideology and psychology. The research is both theoretical and empirical, combining conceptual analysis with interviews with American foreign policy intellectuals.

Research Objectives

This project aims to construct a framework for analysis of these debates that foregrounds the facilitative role of ideological worldviews in maintaining individual and collective self-esteem. The working hypothesis is that they do this by supporting alternative conceptions of national status.

Outputs and impact

The project’s main outcome will be a research monograph (i.e. a book), with accompanying articles.

These will be accompanied by engagement efforts once the research is complete (detail in due course).