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Association: Name: International Studies Association URL: http://www.isanet.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p69863_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Adamson, Duane. "The Imposition of American Ideals: Collective Ideas, Nationalism, and Great Power Foreign Policy" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaii, Mar 05, 2005 <Not Available>. 2008-10-10 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p69863_index.html>

Adamson, D. , 2005-03-05 "The Imposition of American Ideals: Collective Ideas, Nationalism, and Great Power Foreign Policy" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaii Online <.PDF>. 2008-10-10 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p69863_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript Review Method: Peer Reviewed Abstract: This paper evaluates U.S. foreign policy efforts to transform specific collective ideas tied to national identity in post World-War II societies. It examines the increasingly common U.S. practice of attempting to manipulate the collective ideas of foreign societies through the imposition of democratic institutions, economic incentives, restructured education systems, and other mechanisms designed to instill democratic and uniquely American norms. I argue that the U.S. and great powers in general accept and follow mainstream constructivist expectations about the nature of collective ideas. This approach, with a few limited exceptions, has not been successful. Using perspectives on nationalism as a foundation, I offer an alternative explanation of both if and when the collective ideas defining national identity can be transformed. I apply elements of nationalism, constructivism, and realism to bring new understanding to the question of external ideational imposition and transformation. In building this model, I compare U.S. efforts at ideational change in post-World War II Germany and Japan to current efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Great power efforts at ideational change assume that the ideas which define national political identity are constructed, temporary, and transmutable. In U.S. policy circles, there is little trepidation in attempting the broad transformation of foreign societies. The shipment of millions of textbooks to Afghanistan that reframe the Taliban as well as the United States in Afghan society and ongoing efforts in Iraq are not dissimilar to earlier projects to denazify Germany, de-emperorize Japan, etc. In fact, the percieved success of the German and Japanese cases, are often seen as the model for future U.S. endeavors. As some constructivists argue, ideas go all the way down. These collective-shared ideas forming political identity are either the result of elite and institutional design or are the product of the intersubjective relationship between agent and structure. The former, a structural approach to contructivism, sees identity change as possible with changes in institutions or elite efforts. The later, based on a mixed structuration model, see collective ideas defining identity as in flux with change possible at any given moment. While collective ideas may be sticky, resistant to change due to their placement in institutional and normative structures, in neither version are collective ideas given long-term independent continuity or permanence. National identity as a result is simply imagined or invented. Being invented, these ideas should be highly malleable to changes imposed by powerful states through the imposition of new domestic institutions, elites, educational systems, myths and symbols. In this paper, I will show that U.S. foreign policy efforts paint a much different picture of ideational change. The first set of problems for constructivists are empirical. The U.S. has found little success in grand ideational change. The second set of problems are methodological. Structurational constructivism focuses on the intersubjective nature of collective ideas in identity formation and maintenance. Agent and structure are mutually constituted with collective ideas driving identity established by their interaction. As others have noted, leaving collective ideas flexible, able to affect and be affected by both agent and structure, these approaches fail to define a process by which collective ideas either change or remain constant. Structural constructivists, preferencing the role of elites and institutions, avoid this problem but suffer from the necessity that collective ideas be considered as fact in the minds of individuals if they are to have any import. Ideas that are infinitely malleable to the forces of elite manipulation and institutions leave little ground for their acceptance as social fact. My response to constructivism is built on perennialist theories of nationalism and elements of realism. I argue that not all the collective ideas which define identity are created equal. While most discussions of collective ideas do not vary the import of different ideas within the polity, these ideas do vary in meaningful ways. Collective ideas differ in their purpose, intensity, and malleability. I argue that identity includes fundamental ideas which represent the social facts of any given identity. These ideas are not subject to change in any meaningful time frame. Process ideas also form a part of political identity and may change as long as they remain ideationally consistent with the fundamental core. Together, the transformable and fundamental forms of collective ideas come together to establish national identity. The end result is a finding that the U.S. and other great powers will find the transformation of fundamental ideas impossible and any limited change in process ideas will come only to the extent that these new ideas resonate with fundamental ideational core of each society.

Learning Identity: A Structural Equation Model of Students' State and Ethno-National Identities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia

Learning Identity: A Structural Equation Model of Students' State and Ethno-National Identities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia