The foreign policy agenda of democratic and republican parties in the post-Cold war

• Grant number: 14/16639-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2015
• End date: February 29, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Political Behavior
• Principal Investigator: Maria Do Socorro Sousa Braga
• Grantee: Flávio Contrera
• Supervisor: Matthew M. Taylor
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: American University (AU), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 12/25218-6 - American foreign policy in the post-Cold War: what do democrats and republicans think about that?, BP.DR

Abstract

For over forty years, the fight against the spread of communism dominated the American foreign policy agenda. But the end of the Cold War and the consequent emergence of a new world order posed new challenges for its foreign policy. In the absence of a threat considered vital, the U.S. had great difficulty to identify and promote their national interests. Given this context, the traditional discussions between isolationists and internationalists, realists and idealists were renewed, permeated by the debate between decline/renewal. These discussions were not outside the American political parties, who despite sustaining different standards in their foreign policy agendas since the American involvement in Vietnam, would be unifying around the strategy of containing communism during the Cold War. But the end of the bipolar conflict also eliminated the element of foreign policy consensus between Democrats and Republicans. Thus, the main objective of this project is to identify differences of thematic emphases in the composition of Democrats and Republicans foreign policy agenda's in the Post-Cold War. The identification of these emphases, through content analysis of presidential campaign platforms of the parties and the analysis of roll-call voting of legislators of each party in Congress, in matters of foreign policy, fills a gap simultaneously in foreign policy studies and literature of political parties, in order that our theme lies at the intersection of two disciplines that little dialogue. (AU)