The Trump Presidency

Continuity and Change in US Foreign Policy

Matthew Alan Hill, Steven Hurst, Matthew Alan Hill, Steven Hurst

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032314631
• eBook ISBN: 9781000630947
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Did Donald Trump decisively transform and alter the course of US foreign policy?

All presidents promise change, but few presidents promise changes as radical as Trump did during his presidency. The extent to which Trump delivered on that promise, however, remains hotly debated with little or no agreement. The chapters in this edited volume argue that much of this debate is a dialogue of the deaf where scholars speak past rather than to each other, where the basis for claims about change or continuity is unclear and where the argument and knowledge, consequently, fails to progress. At its heart, this is a problem of theory and methods.

Employing a diverse range of theoretical and methodological perspectives, this book seeks to move the debate beyond a superficial focus on events to more fundamental questions of how change is defined, measured and explained and in doing so, attempts to advance understanding of foreign policy change and the extent to which Trump can really be considered to have been a transformative president.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Global Affairs.

The Trump foreign policy record and the concept of transformational change

Edward Ashbee and Steven Hurst

ABSTRACT

While there has been debate about the extent to which US foreign policy has been transformed since President Trump first took office in 2017, the concept of transformational policy change has not been defined with any degree of precision. The purpose of this article is, primarily, to establish such a definition. It does this by drawing upon a number of the literatures that address domestic policy processes, in particular the work of Karl Polanyi, to suggest that transformational change rests upon paradigmatic shifts, the reconfiguration of interests, large scale institutional re-ordering and changed logics. Application of the definition to the Trump foreign policy leads us to conclude that while the Trump foreign policy owes much to the militant internationalism of the Bush years its understanding of nations and “globalism” and abandonment of a defining moral purpose represent, although incipient, partial and variegated, the beginnings of transformational change.

Introduction

As the introduction to this special issue demonstrated, arguments about whether the Trump presidency has seen a dramatic transformation of US foreign policy are fierce and ongoing. Largely absent from the debate, however, is the question of what constitutes transformational foreign policy change. Yet without an answer to that question the debate will remain unresolved. In the absence of clear criteria, even consensus as to the facts may not lead to agreement regarding the degree of change. What constitutes minor change in one conceptual schema may be classified as transformational under another (Bauer & Knill, 2014, p. 29).¹

Our objective in this paper is therefore to consider the character of transformational foreign policy change. We focus on transformational change not only because of the debate surrounding the Trump foreign policy but also because, while all presidents can enact some degree of change, what is of real significance is the distinction between policy transformations and lesser order shifts.

An initial survey of the literature on foreign policy change reveals a focus on explanations of change rather than on definitions of change. Moreover, what attention has been devoted to the latter problem has produced little in terms of conceptual schema. We therefore look towards the literature in historical institutionalism, presidential scholarship and economic history in order to offer a model that rests upon processes of ideational change, the development of new or reconfigured coalitional blocs, institutional changes and the creation of different logics. In the subsequent section of the paper we demonstrate the utility of the model in a foreign policy context by applying the concepts developed to the post-1945 transformation of US foreign policy. Finally, we provide an indicative sketch applying the model to the Trump administration’s foreign policy. We do not seek, in doing so, to draw definitive conclusions or offer a comprehensive survey. Rather, we demonstrate how the model provides a basis for a systematic approach to assessing change.

Foreign policy analysis and definitions of change

As Kleistra and Mayer (2001, p. 387) observed, the Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) literature addressing change is “strong on detailing the independent variables” but pays “little attention to the dependent variable. What changes? To what extent?”. A survey reveals explanatory models that focus on policy entrepreneurs and policy windows (Blavoukos & Bourantonis, 2014), problems of structure and agency (Carlsnaes, 1993) and facilitators of and obstacles to change (Goldmann, 1988; Kleistra & Mayer, 2001). In addition, there are studies that examine role theory (Grossmann, 2005), decision-making processes (Kuperman, 2006), domestic politics (Doeser, 2011) and policy sequencing (Ozkececi-Tanner, 2006). Other analyses emphasize the role of ideas (Risse-Kappen, 1994) culture (Rynhold, 2007) and policy failure (Walsh, 2006; Welch, 2005). Finally, there have been attempts to develop multi-causal models of change (Gustavsson, 1999; Herrmann, 1990; Holsti, 1982; Holsti, Siverson, & George, 1980; Rosati et al. 1994). With few exceptions, the question of how to define and measure change is given limited attention in these analyses.

Nevertheless, a handful of scholars have sought to address those questions. Holsti (1982, p. 2) defines foreign policy “restructuring” as “a type of foreign policy behaviour where governments seek to change, usually simultaneously, the total pattern of their external relations”. Rosati (1994, p. 236) also employs the term “restructuring” to refer to the highest level of change in a four-fold typology, defining it as involving “major changes in scope, goals and strategy”. Herrmann (1990, p. 5) uses a four-fold typology with “international reorientation” at the top, which he defines as a “redirection of the actor's entire orientation toward world affairs….Not one policy but many are more or less simultaneously shifted”. Finally, Volgy and Schwarz (1994, pp. 25–6) define foreign policy restructuring as a “comprehensive change in the foreign policy orientation of a nation, involving multidimensional change in behaviour which is rapid rather than incremental”. Despite acknowledging the need to differentiate between varying degrees of change, however, these scholars fail to develop their definitions beyond these broad summary statements. To distinguish between foreign policy “restructuring” and foreign policy “reform” by stating that the former involves “major changes in scope, goals and strategy” and the latter only “moderate” changes (Rosati, 1994, p. 236) offers scant guidance as to how these concepts might be operationalized in practice. Hence there is a need for a more precise definition of transformational foreign policy change.

Depicting and defining transformational change

Although neglected in FPA, there have been efforts to disaggregate and define the concept of transformational change in other literatures. These include some work in economic and social history and studies of American political development (APD). Many of these accounts draw implicitly and at times openly upon the thinking of Karl Polanyi and his widely cited book The Great Transformation (1944/2001). Taking the literature collectively, the concept of transformational change rests upon a series of structural shifts that generally take place amidst flux or in the wake of crises.

These shifts included, first, paradigmatic change. A paradigm is understood as “a framework of ideas and standards that specifies not only the goals of policy and the kind of instruments that can be used to attain them, but also the very nature of the problems they are meant to be addressing” (Hall, 1993, p. 279). Paradigmatic changes rest upon shifts in the character of both background ideas (which are taken-for-granted assumptions) and foreground ideas (which take a more open and explicit form) as well as both cognitive and normative thinking. Cognitive ideas identify causes and their effects whereas normative ideas rest upon values, principles and preferences (Campbell, 2004, p. 93). The extent to which change can be deemed transformational is in part a function of the degree to which new ideas become a form of “common sense”. Thus, as Keynesianism was displaced during the 1970s and early 1980s there was a wholesale change in the system of economic ideas which “specified what the economic world was like, how it was to be observed, which goals were attainable through policy, and what instruments should be used to attain them” (Hall, 1993, p. 279).

Second, transformational change involves “fundamental shifts in power and representation of interests and values” (Pelling, 2011, p. 84). It entails the rise of new interests and the formation of different coalitions between interests. In his studies of the US presidency, Stephen Skowronek ties transformational shifts to the reconfiguration of interests alongside ideational change: Thus:

American government and politics are transformed when new interests secure a firm grip on power, when institutional relationships are rearranged to support them, when government priorities are durably recast, and when a corresponding set of legitimating ideas becomes the new common sense. (Skowronek, 2011, p. 171)

The New Deal era illustrates the ways in which interests are reconfigured in a transformational period, with the new-found dominance of the Democratic Party based on increasingly powerful unions and the ascendancy of a different “investor bloc” or corporate coalition based upon the investment banks and the capital-intensive industries that looked towards international markets and were less “labor-sensitive” than more traditional labour-intensive firms (Ferguson, 1995, pp. 121–129).²

Third, the concept of transformational change encompasses shifts in the character of both formal and informal institutional structures insofar as they have an implementational role or adapt in response to shifting systems of ideas. If, for example, the course of US history during the latter half of the twentieth century is considered on a long-run basis, and notwithstanding the recent efforts of the right to rein in collective social provision, shifting ideas about the role of government, the responsibilities it should undertake, and the rights of the citizen, led to a dramatic shift in the locus of governmental authority from the individual states to Washington DC (Pierson & Skocpol, 2007, p. 4).

Fourth, the shifts in ideas, institutions and interests lay the basis for the final defining feature of transformational change –they redirect logics. The concept of a “logic” takes different forms but can be understood as “a set of goals or motivations that influence the way in which actors organize their preferences” (Etienne & Schnyder, 2014, p. 367). This, in turn, lays a basis for particular choices, actions and events. In sum, logics prov...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: The Trump presidency: continuity and change in US foreign policy
• 1 The Trump foreign policy record and the concept of transformational change
• 2 What makes America great? Donald Trump, national identity, and U.S. foreign policy
• 3 When ends Trump means: continuity versus change in US counterterrorism policy
• 4 Security and polarization in Trump’s America: securitization and the domestic politics of threatening others
• 5 Low-conceptual complexity and Trump’s foreign policy
• 6 Why American grand strategy has changed: international constraint, generational shift, and the return of realism
• 7 “You think our country’s so innocent?” The Trump administration’s policy on democratic practices in Russia and the challenge to US identity
• 8 Crisis, narratives, and the construction of US-Middle East relations: continuity and change in world history and Trump’s America First
• 9 The Trump administration: continuity and change in US foreign policy
• Index