Hegemony Constrained: Evasion, Modification, and Resistance to American Foreign Policy (review)

[ 175 ] policymaker’s library • select books published in 2008 Hegemony Constrained: Evasion, Modification, and Resistance to American Foreign Policy Davis B. Bobrow, ed. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008 • 368 pp. When and how do others in the world try to evade, modify, and even resist U.S. government policy preferences? This book presents a framework of non‑compliance options and case studies. main argument Foreign governments and organizations—whether allies, neutrals, or enemies—have more subtle options with regard to U.S. policies than just followership, passivity, suicidal opposition, or formal counter-balancing alliances. Their choices are shaped not only by their international assets and ties with the U.S. but at least as much by their domestic political dynamics, issue priorities rooted in remembered history and local context, and expectations about the influence of U.S. political alignments that support or oppose current U.S. policies. Foreign countries can gain advantage by having comparatively more sustained and focused policy priorities as well as by grooming policymakers that are better informed about U.S. politics than U.S. policymakers are about domestic politics elsewhere. policy implications • Given that Asian elites, whether allies, foes, or neutrals, can negatively affect the timing, costs, and benefits of almost any regional and global U.S. foreign and security policy, the U.S. needs to provide them incentives to refrain from doing so. • Expressed Asian support for a U.S. policy is not always proof of agreement. Instead, such support may be a bargaining chip for achieving disproportionately large U.S. concessions on other issues, a way more generally to weaken or divert the U.S., or a pledge unlikely to be fulfilled. • Asian responses to U.S. policies take into account both their prevailing interpretation of previous U.S. policies and the pay-offs and risks in their domestic and regional politics from compliance with Washington. • Asian elites and publics view U.S. policies as volatile, subject to short-term selfish thinking, and domestically opportunistic. They often hedge bets on particular U.S. policies in ways that do not burn bridges with Washington. • Superficial consultation and token multilateralism will not substantially reduce Asian willingness to selectively evade, modify, or even resist U.S. policies. ...