Description
This paper will consider the challenge posed by the fragmented and inconsistent nature of Trump’s foreign policy to IR theory, considering the case of the administration’s approach to NATO, to NATO member states, and to broader questions of European security. It will argue that traditional IR theoretical approaches struggle to explain Trump’s foreign policy because Trump’s personal approach does not appear to be informed by traditional conceptions of foreign policy interests or identity, and because other individuals, groups, and organisations within the Trump administration hold widely differing and frequently changing positions. Constructivist approaches allow scholars to make sense of the individual voices in Trump’s foreign policy – how they articulate both specific policies and how those policies relate to actor understandings of US national identity – but characteristics of the Trump administration set significant limits even here. The two most significant of these are the instability of administration membership – key foreign and security policy positions have experienced a high turnover of personnel – and the lack of transparency, including documentation, on foreign policy matters. The paper argues that the Trump administration’s foreign policy thus poses fundamental conceptual and empirical challenges for IR scholars of all theoretical positions, and for the possibility of thinking about a coherent US national identity narrative in this period.
