The Woodrow Wilson Center Press
Neoconservatives in U.S. Foreign Policy under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush: Voices behind the Throne
Related Topics: U.S. Foreign Policy, United States
Jesús Velasco examines the origins and history of the neoconservative political movement so closely identified with the George W. Bush administration's policies of regime change and democratization. Analyzing the movement's intellectual background, institutions, financial supporters, publications, and points of influence, Velasco distinguishes the first generation of neoconservatives, which emerged in the late 1970s, from the generation that rose to power in the 2000s. Velasco's study is based in large part on interviews with such key neoconservative figures as Irving Kristol and Richard Perle and on access to the archives of such organizations as the Committee on the Present Danger and the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. This work provides important new insights into how this cadre of intellectuals—once on the margins of the political scene—came so dominantly to affect U.S. foreign relations.
What People are Saying
"Professor Velasco provides an impressively comprehensive, clear, and careful account of neoconservatives' rise to power in the late twentieth-century United States. Velasco is particularly good at revealing who constitute the core and peripheral members of the first and second generation of neoconservatives, atuncovering the personal networks and financial ties that connect and supportindividual neoconservatives, and at tracing the effects of the two generations of neoconservatives on American foreign policy." —Bartholomew Sparrow, University of Texas at Austin
"This is an excellent and interesting book. Through extensive use of archival material, Velasco brings to light a number of facts that are not widely known, particularly with regard to the funding apparatus that financed the neocons' political and policy endeavors." —Benjamin Ginsberg, The Johns Hopkins University
Chapter List
List of Tables
Preface and Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: An Analytical Framework
2 Who Is a Neoconservative?
3 Neoconservative Organizations as a Vehicle for an Ideological Crusade
4 Ideas, Institutions, and Interests: The Influence of Neoconservatism on Reagan's Human Rights Policy
5 Ideas, Institutions, and Interests: The Influence of Neoconservatism on the U.S. Military Buildup
6 The Second Neoconservative Movement
7 Second-Generation Neoconservatives and Foreign Policy
8 Neoconservatives at War
9 Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy after September 11
10 The Iraqi Debacle and the Partial Decline of Neoconservatism
Epilogue
Notes
Index
