Sailing the Water’s Edge: The Domestic Politics of American Foreign Policy

Authors: Helen V. Milner and Dustin Tingley
Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2015B_5_Milner_SailingTheWater'sEdge

When engaging with other countries, the U.S. government has a number of different policy instruments at its disposal, including foreign aid, international trade and the use of military force. But what determines which policies are chosen? Does the United States rely too much on the use of military power and coercion in its foreign policies? Sailing the Water’s Edge focuses on how domestic U.S. politics — in particular the interactions between the president, Congress, interest groups, bureaucratic institutions and the public — have influenced foreign policy choices since World War II and shows why presidents have more control over some policy instruments than others.

Helen Milner, Princeton’s B.C. Forbes Professor of Public Affairs and professor of politics and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, and Dustin Tingley, professor of government at Harvard University, explore whether American foreign policy will remain guided by a grand strategy of liberal internationalism, what affects American foreign policy successes and failures, and the role of U.S. intelligence collection in shaping foreign policy. Sailing the Water’s Edge examines the importance of domestic political coalitions and institutions on the formation of American foreign policy.

All text and images courtesy of the publisher.

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