1. The Historical, Intellectual, and Cultural Origins of the Project for a New American Century.
- Author
-
Haugen, Douglas
- Subjects
- *
RESEARCH institutes , *NATIONAL security , *CONTAINMENT (Political science) , *POLITICAL development ,FOREIGN relations of the United States - Abstract
The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) is a Washington D.C based think tank that produced a 1997 document generally credited as the template for the "Bush Doctrine." The PNAC advocated the transformation of America's foreign and national security policy. The organization asserted that US decision makers needed to execute an immediate shift away from the antiquated "containment doctrine" toward a new international policy focused upon preemption, regime change, nation building, and unilateralism. I suggest that the American Political Development (APD) subfield has much to offer in the way of explaining how beauracractic actors, such as those in the PNAC, under certain conditions, can act as autonomous policy entrepreneurs and epistemic communities in order to influence the direction of American policy. My research will trace the members of the PNAC and their intellectual and policy networking activities between 1991 and 2001. I recognize that human agency lies at the interstices between systemic conditions, knowledge, and national actions. I offer an approach that will examine the role this network of knowledge-based experts (epistemic community) played in articulating the cause-and-effect relationships of complex problems, that helped decision makers identify American interests, frame issues for collective debate, and propose policy alternatives. Specifically, I will track the action of PNAC members with an emphasis upon both public and private policy advocacy. I wish to conduct interviews with critical members and have them account for the process tracing I uncover. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007