A. Summary on Chapter 2
In Hastedt’s American Foreign Policy, Hastedt evaluates United States’ foreign policy in
both current and historical situations. In chapter two, Hastedt more closely develops these ideas
from a global perspective, looking at various international initiatives and our response to these
situations as well as perceptions of Americans from various nations.
Hastedt begins the chapter by depicting a few situations in which the U.S. has
implemented foreign policy and their outcomes, like the Somalian pirate attacks. This sets the
background for the idea of variations in perspectives of world politics and more specifically the
fundamental nature of world politics. Hastedt breaks it down into three main theoretical
perspectives: realism, neoliberalism, and constructivism.
According to Hastedt, realism is the “dominant intellectual perspective used for studying
