The Domestic Politics of World Power, 1890-1945

该项目将研究美国崛起为世界强国期间对美国外交政策的支持和反对的来源。1890年至1945年间，美国从世界政治中的边缘参与者转变为具有全球利益的超级大国。这一过程中的关键步骤在国内引发了相当大的政治争议。解释这些辩论的原因很重要，不仅是因为历史原因，也是因为它涉及为什么在国家安全问题上存在分歧这一更广泛的问题。由于这些问题表面上涉及每个人都共有的国家利益，因此解释围绕这些问题的政治冲突被证明比解释在外交经济政策上的分歧更难。该项目将带来新的数据和最近的发展，了解经济利益和外交政策决策之间的关系，以影响1890-1945年期间对美国外交政策的长期经济解释。早期的工作强调了寻找海外市场在塑造美国外交政策中的重要性，但在很大程度上忽略了关税保护要求在美国国内市场上抵御外国竞争的作用。政治学的最新研究表明，贸易保护可以帮助解释一些长期存在的问题，这些问题在对美国外交政策的旧经济学解释中没有得到回答。保护的要求主要来自担心欧洲竞争的美国制造商。这一事实有助于解释，为什么主要来自工业发达的东北地区的海外市场倡导者会把重点放在世界上欠发达地区，尽管这些地区在美国的贸易中只占了很小的份额。同样，这也有助于解释，为什么来自美国出口依赖度最高的南方地区的美国人，对寻找海外市场的热情要低得多，也就是它所暗示的更为积极的外交政策。他们更喜欢与欧洲进行贸易，而这需要美国降低关税。在很大程度上，由于可用数据的局限性，即使是关于这一时期美国外交政策的政治经济学的更古老的说法，也没有经过严格的检验。必要的数据存在，但不是以易于访问的形式存在。这项提案要求的资金将使收集这些实证测试所需的国际贸易、美国各州的工农业生产以及国会外交政策辩论的数据成为可能。在展示这项定量研究的结果时，对美国外交政策进行更传统的描述至关重要，因为这些描述几乎完全依赖于通过档案研究收集的定性证据。因此，调查员除了收集和分析定量数据外，还将审查定性来源。对这项研究结果的陈述，包括它的量化部分，将被设计成吸引尽可能广泛的受众，而不仅仅是那些精通定量研究方法的人。这个项目将揭示关于美国崛起为世界强国的历史上重要的辩论。正如西奥多·罗斯福、伍德罗·威尔逊和这一时期其他杰出人物的著作所表明的那样，这个话题继续引起受过教育的公众的广泛兴趣。为这一项目收集的数据也将对对美国政治和经济发展的其他方面感兴趣的学者有用。该项目将为宾厄姆顿大学的研究生提供宝贵的研究经验，并为本科课程的教学提供更广泛的美国外交政策和国际关系方面的信息。

The project will study the sources of support and opposition to American foreign policy during the nation's rise as a world power. Between 1890 and 1945, the United States transformed itself from a marginal player in world politics into a superpower with global interests. The key steps along the way provoked considerable domestic political controversy. Explaining the reasons for these debates is important not only for historical reasons but also because it bears on the broader question of why divisions over national security issues exist. Because these issues ostensibly involve national interests that everyone shares, explaining political conflict over them has proven more difficult than explaining differences over foreign economic policy.The project will bring new data and recent developments in the understanding of the relationship between economic interests and foreign policy decisions to bear on longstanding economic interpretations of American foreign policy during the 1890-1945 period. Earlier work stresses the importance of the search for overseas markets in shaping American foreign policy but largely ignores the role of demands for tariff protection against foreign competition in the American domestic market. More recent research in political science suggests that trade protection can help explain some persistent questions unanswered in older economic interpretations of American foreign policy. Demands for protection came mainly from American manufacturers concerned about European competition. This fact helps explain why advocates of the search for foreign markets, who came mainly from the industrial Northeast, focused on less developed areas of the world, even though these areas received a small share of American trade. Similarly, it helps explain why the Americans from the most export-dependent region of the country, the South, were far less enthusiastic about this search for overseas markets and the more activist foreign policy that it implied. They preferred trade with Europe, something that required lower American tariffs. Largely because of the limitations of the available data, even the older claims about the political economy of American foreign policy during this period have not been rigorously tested. The necessary data exist but not in a readily accessible form. The funds requested in this proposal will make it possible to gather the data on international trade, industrial and agricultural production within American states, and congressional foreign policy debates needed for these empirical tests. In presenting the results of this quantitative research, it is critically important to engage more conventional accounts of American foreign policy, which rely almost exclusively on qualitative evidence gathered through archival research. The investigator will thus review the qualitative sources in addition to collecting and analyzing quantitative data. Presentations of the results of this research, including the quantitative portions of it, will be designed to engage the broadest possible audience, not just those versed in quantitative research methods.This project will shed light on historically important debates about the rise of the United States as a world power. As the popularity of works on Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and other prominent figures from this period suggests, the topic continues to interest a broad section of the educated public. The data gathered for this project will also be useful to scholars interested in other aspects of the political and economic development of the United States. The project will provide valuable research experience to graduate students at Binghamton University, as well as informing the teaching of undergraduate classes on US foreign policy and international relations more generally.