New York, NY - 01 February 2017: Women wear an American Flag head scarf at an event at City Hall for World Hijab Day. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

New York, NY - 01 February 2017: Women wear an American Flag head scarf at an event at City Hall for World Hijab Day. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

The Changing Character of the US

America's global engagement is shaped by its domestic politics. We study changes inside the US and their impact on US global influence.

 

Since independence, domestic concerns have shaped US global engagement on key foreign policy issues. Today, it is impossible to understand US policy on the environment, immigration, trade or national security absent an understanding of the domestic context in which US policy is made. Currently the most salient domestic fault lines in the US political system are around partisanship and party identification, the urban-rural cultural divide, income inequality and race. We examine these fault lines and the policy solutions to address them.

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