In his new book, Divided America on the World Stage: Broken Government and Foreign Policy, Howard J. Wiarda, Dean Rusk Professor of International Relations at UGA, details the severe crisis facing American foreign policy.
He discusses how the system and process are not working as they should, including uninformed policy, paralysis, gridlock and the sense that the American system of government is broken.
Wiarda argues that the crisis goes far deeper than Congress, the president or the Iraq War—though each bear some responsibility. He contends that the problem derives from the kind of society America has become over a 40-year period: more divided, fragmented and dysfunctional. He sees the divide as social, economic, cultural and political.
Wiarda seeks answers by exploring the fragmentation of American political culture, foreign policy differences between the two major political parties, relations among the large foreign policy bureaucracies and executive-legislative interactions. He also emphasizes the media’s role in polarizing the debate, the role of Washington’s think tanks and how social life in the nation’s capital both reflects and reinforces pre-existing divisions.
