Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
When: | Thursday, January 30th, 2020 |
Time: | 5:30 pm — 7:00 pm |
Location: | Richcraft Hall, Second floor conference rooms |
Audience: | Alumni, Anyone, Carleton Community, Current Students, Faculty |
Contact: | Brian C. Schmidt, brian.schmidt@carleton.ca, 613-520-2600 ex. 1062 |
“During the period between the end of the Cold War (1989) and Donald Trump becoming president (2017), it was widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build institutions. This policy of remaking the world in America’s image was supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what happened. Instead, the United States ended up as a highly militarized country fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home. John Mearsheimer explains why liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States after the Cold War ended, was doomed to fail, and indeed contributed to Donald Trump winning the White House. He maintains that it would have made far more sense for Washington to have adopted a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad.”
John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Professor Mearsheimer has written extensively about security issues and international politics more generally. In 2003, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He has published six books: Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss, Jr., Book Award; Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988); The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001, 2014), which won the Joseph Lepgold Book Prize and has been translated into nine different languages; The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (with Stephen M. Walt, 2007), which made the New York Times best seller list and has been translated into twenty-four different languages; Why Leaders Lie: The Truth about Lying in International Politics (2011), which has been translated into twelve different languages; and The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (2018) which has been translated into five different languages.
This event is part of FPA Research Series