Friday, September 9, 2016

US Politics and the United Nations book cover

by Alynna J. Lyon
Lynne Rienner Publishers (September 9, 2016)

It is no secret that the U.S. variously pulls away from the United Nations and embraces it as a significant venue for policy initiatives. But what explains this dramatic inconsistency? What is the logic of U.S. multilateralism? Alynna Lyon explores the puzzling waxing and waning of U.S. support for the U.N., tracing events, actions and decisions from the end of World War I to the present. Lyon weaves together a consideration of international context, U.N. institutional dynamics, and U.S. domestic politics to conceptualize and explain the trials and tribulations of the U.S.-U.N. relationship. In the process, she tells the story of the progression of the U.S. from a country committed to internationalism to one full of dysfunctional partisanship, ideological underpinnings and domestic power struggles that undermine its capacities to cooperate on a global scale.