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The decision to mount an armed foreign intervention is one of the most consequential that a US president can take. This book sets out to explain why and when presidents choose to use force. The book examines decisions to use force throughout the post-Cold War period, via flashpoints including the Balkans, the ‘War on Terror’ and the Middle East. It develops new explanations for variation in the use of force in US foreign policy by theorizing and demonstrating the effects of the displacement and repression of ideas within and across different US presidential administrations, from George H.W. Bush to Donald Trump. For students, scholars and anyone with an interest in international relations and global security, this book is an original perspective on a defining issue of recent decades.

This book provides the first detailed examination of the practice of policy analysis in Mexico. It studies how public institutions and other non-state actors gather and review information and ponder options in the process of making (or trying to influence) policy decisions. Its chapters also offer explanations that are helpful for understanding how and why policy analysis activities vary across settings, and why this intellectual activity has made significant progress but is still far from being fully established in the country. While these are questions that have great theoretical and practical relevance, they had remained rather under-researched until now. The book follows a similar structure to that of other volumes in the International Library of Policy Analysis of the Policy Press. It thus seeks the double objective of telling the intellectual story of Policy Analysis in Mexico, as well as of giving a detailed account of policy analysis as a practical endeavor in the country. Moreover, the book describes how policy analysis takes place in a variety of state institutions and a number of non-state organizations which are permanently and directly involved in public affairs. The comprehensive view that results from this effort should thus be of interest to those who are keen to learn more about policy analysis and policy making in Mexico, and to those who favor comparative policy studies but cannot always access relevant information on developing nations.

Policy Analysis in the United States brings together contributions from some of the world’s leading scholars and practitioners of public policy analysis including Beryl Radin, David Weimer, Rebecca Maynard, Laurence Lynn, and Guy Peters. This volume is part of the International Library of Policy Analysis series, enabling scholars to compare cross-nationally concepts and practices of public policy analysis in the media, sub-national governments, and many more institutional settings. The book explores the current landscape of public policy in the US, its breadth and complexities, and the role of policy analysis. It highlights the role and importance of policy analysis in the present, especially in the context of “alternative facts”, as well as looking at the evolution of the discipline over time. It examines policy analysis from local to national levels, and includes specific chapters examining how public policies and policy analysis have been shaped by, and shapes, public opinion, the American political landscape, the media, public and private sectors, higher education, and more. It includes an examination of how the academic fields of policy training and policy analysis are changing, and how policy analysis as a discipline, which started in the US, has grown and developed internationally.

America has been at war for most of the 20th and 21st centuries and during that time has progressively moved towards a vicarious form of warfare, where key tasks are delegated to proxies, the military's exposure to danger is limited, and special forces and covert instruments are on the increase. Important strategic decisions are taken with minimal scrutiny or public engagement. This book charts the historical emergence of this distinctive tradition of war and explains the factors driving its contemporary prominence. It argues that vicarious warfare is an extreme form of strategic alchemy, and contemporary America is its most enthusiastic guild. In simple terms, vicarious warfare refers to the prospect of war on the cheap, fought at a reduced price in blood, treasure or political capital relative to ambition. The book contrasts the tactical advantages of vicarious warfare with its hidden costs and potential to cause significant strategic harm.