Description
Most people never think about foreign policy. Fewer still adopt firm positions. Unlike domestic policy most people do not feel strongly invested in foreign policy decisions. Why then have these decisions sparked such controversy in American politics throughout the 2010s?
Drawing on new primary and secondary material this paper investigates the function of foreign policy controversy during the Obama and Trump presidencies with a focus on the role of foreign policy ‘talkers’, defined as academics, journalists and legislators. Through a paired, most-different case study design this study takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore how these ‘talkers’ create controversy around particular foreign policy choices made by others in order to flag a divergence from agreed ‘rules of the game’ to a larger less-interested, and less-informed, audience who nevertheless have a stake in foreign policy issues. This advances two new concepts as part of the historical turn in IR scholarship. Firstly, this paper demonstrates the historical value of foreign policy controversy as an analytical tool and secondly it promotes detailed case study work of the blurred boundary between those who make foreign policy and those who talk about it.
