Ira Katznelson & Martin Shefter, ed.，Shaped by War and Trade: International Influences on American Political Development

Ira Katznelson & Martin Shefter, ed.，Shaped by War and Trade: International Influences on American Political Development

Is the United States of America a country shaped by war? While for students of International Relations the answer might seem obvious, scholars of American Politics have largely neglected international influences on American state building. They have largely focused on domestic political institutions adhering to the dominant paradigm that they were shaped by a liberal political tradition which goes back to the founding of the United States. These scholars have further perpetuated the mainstream view of the American state as weak referring to it as being constrained by a liberal constitution based on the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. A group of American Political Development (APD) have called the weak state thesis of the liberal tradition scholarship in question pointing out the administrative achievements of the American state.