Woodrow Wilson And The American Diplomatic Tradition

Woodrow Wilson's contributions to the creation of the League of Nations as well as his failures in the Senate battles over the Versailles treaty are stressed in this account of his leadership in international affairs.

This book critiques President Woodrow Wilson's statecraft and diplomacy during World War I, notably with respect to religion and race.

In Wilsonianism , American foreign relations specialist Lloyd E. Ambrosius has compiled his published and unpublished essays on Woodrow Wilson's liberal ideology and statecraft during and after World War I. Although the president failed in his pursuit of a new world order, his legacy of Wilsonianism - the principles of national self-determination, economic globalization, collective security, and progressive historicism - continued to shape U.S. foreign relations throughout the American Century. Ambrosius examines the American roots of Wilson's liberal internationalism, the dilemmas and contradictions in his principles, and the problematic consequences of U.S. efforts to implement Wilsonian ideals without fully appreciating the world's cultural pluralism as well as its economic and political interdependence. Offering a pluralist variant of the realist tradition in international relations, Ambrosius stresses the centrality of power; but maintains that culture and political economy as well as military strength determine the balance of power within and among nations or empires. Consequently, he concludes, making the world safe for democracy has been more problematic in practice, both at home and abroad, than proclaiming Wilsonian principles in the abstract.

In 1918, Wilson's image as leader of the free world and the image of America as dispenser of democracy spread through Italy, filling an ideological void. Rossini sets the Italian-American political confrontation in the context of the countries' cultural perceptions of each other, different war experiences, and ideas about participatory democracy.

When and why do powerful countries seek to enact major changes to international order, the broad set of rules that guide behavior in world politics? This question is particularly important today given the Trump administration's clear disregard for the reigning liberal international order in the United States. Across the globe, there is also uncertainty over what China might seek to replace that order with as it continues to amass power and influence. Together, these developments mean that what motivates great powers to shape and change order will remain at the forefront of debates over the future of world politics. Prior studies have focused on how the origins of international orders have been consensus-driven and inclusive. By contrast, Kyle M. Lascurettes argues in Orders of Exclusion that the propelling motivation for great power order building has typically been exclusionary. Dominant powers pursue fundamental changes to order when they perceive a major new threat on the horizon. Moreover, they do so for the purpose of targeting this perceived threat, be it another powerful state or a foreboding ideological movement. The goal of foundational rule writing in international relations, then, is blocking that threatening entity from amassing further influence, a motive Lascurettes illustrates at work across more than three hundred years of history. Far from falling outside of the bounds of traditional statecraft, order building is the continuation of power politics by other means.

The modern world derives part of its meaning and definition from the foreign policy formulations of Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman. These presidents viewed the enhancement of American power and the invigoration of American principles as the only response to modem problems such as imperialism, bolshevism, fascism and "total war." The fact that Europe and Asia had submitted to the disastrous consequences of their ideas meant that we had to project and promote our democratic alternative. If we were to live up to our mission and our character, we had to accept radically new responsibilities. This work reveals the important relationship between these presidents and explores the reverential, yet revolutionary relationship each had with broader American traditions. Wilson came to power at a time when both need and the means for change were apparent. In the face of looming war and global turmoil, Wilson took full advantage of America's emerging world-power status. While he held to the traditional American ideal of setting a democratic example, he reconceived it as an obligation to actively promote democracy and self-determination abroad. Indeed, he construed our increased involvement in the world as the logical fulfillment of our democratic purpose. In the heated aftermath of World War II, Truman echoed Wilson's assertion that only the fortification of democracy and the "influence" of America could ease European tensions and prevent future wars. While Truman's early foreign policy is often said to exhibit Wilsonian internationalism, his later "power politics," Pierce shows that all of his foreign policy was underlain by his determination never to let what had happened during and between two world wars happen again. Pierce demonstrates that even Truman's most avid departure from Wilsonianism, his plunge into geopolitics and his build-up of the military power of the free world, was saturated with Wilsonian ideals. "Containment" was underlain by the conviction that, even though it faced fascism and bolshevism, freedom was on the march, and by the surety that democracy is lasting, peaceful and beneficial. As Pierce studies these presidents within the synergistic interplay of ideas and policies, she compels us toward a fruitful dialogue with the American past. Truman's brilliantly construed version of Wilsonianism, this book argues, holds great promise for us today.