Book Review: Today’s Foreign Policy Issues: Democrats and Republicans

Today’s Foreign Policy Issues: Democrats and Republicans, as the title suggests, examines international and “intermestic” policy issues from the perspectives of our two major political parties. According to the introduction, this book “examines the proposals and positions of the two parties—from profound disagreements to areas of common ground” (p. viii); however, this nuanced approach is difficult to achieve in a volume written for the novice researcher. Further, the structure of the articles stresses differences rather than similarities. Presenting political parties as monolithic structures is also problematic. While parties have unifying platforms that are referred to often throughout the book, they tend to obscure internal divisions. This partisan framework also seems to lend itself to deepening cleavages, both real and imagined, for readers approaching the material from entrenched perspectives. And what of independent, libertarian, and green-party positions, among others?