... relations to discover and analyze precisely what interests, ideals, or values policymakers most wanted to defend. Similarly, external threats existed in the eyes of beholders; different observers perceived danger in dramatically different ways. What were real threats and what were perceived threats might...

... chapters explain how foreign policy evolved into national security policy. The book stresses the competing priorities that forced policymakers to make agonizing trade-offs and illuminates the travails of the policymaking process itself. While assessing the course of U.S. national security policy...

...This chapter examines two major swings in the balance between rules and the discretion of policymakers in U.S. economic policymaking in the past four decades: one in favor of rules and the other in favor of discretion. Evidence of the swing away from discretion is seen in actual fiscal policy...

... in the complexity frame is not to choose one or the other. Instead, policy is seen as affecting a complex evolving system that cannot be controlled. But while it cannot be controlled, it can be influenced, and policymakers have to continually think how to work with evolutionary pressures, and try to guide those...

...This chapter details how the eurozone's leadership redeemed itself in 2012–13, though only very partially, by moving from an abhorrence of sovereign and bank debt restructuring to an embrace of both. As 2011 turned into 2012, economic reality increasingly intruded into eurozone policymakers' world...

... obstacles. First, foreign policymakers must voluntarily choose to punish other countries for human rights violations, but they often hesitate to do so. Second, even when leaders manage to condemn human rights violations abroad, their efforts are not always effective. International shaming often fails...

...This chapter argues that the Vietnam War was largely driven by elite consensus and bargaining, making it an insiders' game. Despite widespread misgivings and pessimism among American policymakers and military leaders, the elite chose to incur high human and societal costs. The chaqpter emphasizes...

...This chapter examines how Nelson Rockefeller's 1973 “tough” proposal attempted to resolve the governing problems that arose from the therapeutic regime. It analyzes the ideological and political work accomplished by the proposal and the response by policymakers, opponents, drug users...

... levels of analysis that scholars of international relations often talk about: the individual, the domestic/state, and the international. By using the concept of national security, the author was able to analyze the motives shaping U.S. policymakers, examine their perception of threat and opportunity...

...This chapter examines how the Cold War witnessed continuing government interest in drawing on social science as a resource for national security policymaking. Despite this continuing interest, there was just below the surface an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with academic social science...

... and development. It also studies his arguments and shows how and why they provided U.S. policymakers with the mental map to interpret the Cold War in the Third World in a particularly threatening way and also to recommend strategies to respond to the challenge of underdevelopment there. civilian military...

...This chapter argues that trade, firm mobility, and productivity change firms' preferences over immigration and their willingness to support low-skill immigration, which makes it harder for policymakers to support low-skill immigration, leading to restrictions on low-skill immigration. It first...

... that policymakers face with greater globalization, the chapter examines two of the implications of the argument. The first implication is that the increasing ability to trade should lead to greater immigration restrictions. Second, the increased ability of firms to move production overseas should also lead...

... many functions that one would typically ascribe to government—sometimes alongside and sometimes in place of public officials. The chapter then suggests three recommendations for urban policymakers and community development practitioners. For a more democratic and equitable urban governance...

...To mobilize America's intellectual resources to meet the security challenges of the post-9/11 world, US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates observed that “we must again embrace eggheads and ideas.” But the gap between national security policymakers and international relations scholars has become...

... presents the econometric methods necessary for the successful modeling of recurrent events, providing valuable insights for policymakers, empirical researchers, and theorists. It explains why it is inherently difficult to forecast the onset of a recession in a way that provides useful guidance for active...