>> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> next, george mason university's colin dueck talked to booktv about his most recent book, "hard line." it's about 20 minutes. >> colin dueck is a professor of public and international affairs at george mason university, he's also the author of this book, "hard line: the republican party and u.s. foreign policy since world war ii." professor dueck, what does "hard line" mean? >> i think it sums up one of the main arguments of the book which is that the republican party has had a foreign policy approach that tends to be hard line, by which i mean hawkish on foreign policy, taking very seriously the idea that there are threats out there to the united states and trying to be kind of uncompromising in in the face of

those threats. that's been pretty consistent. but there's also been variety in the sense of what the particular republican approach has been under or particular republican presidents, quite a bit of variety. >> well, that was my next question. um, 67 years since the end of world war ii, about 66, 67 years. >> right. >> 34 of those years have had remin presidents. has there -- republican presidents. has there been a consistency among those presidents? >> >> the main one has been the one i just described, the idea that the u.s. has been engaged under republican presidents, there hasn't been an isolationist republican president, right, since the '20s, tendency towards a hard line approach. that's been the consistency. the variety, though, has been somebody like, let's say bush 41, bush sr., and bush 43, bush jr., followed very different foreign policies in some ways, and the two of them each different from richard nixon or ronald reagan as well.

>> how were the two bushes different treason ronald reagan? >> the first bush, his main emphasis was on stability, prudence, caution. i mean, he was trying to preside over very dramatic changes and maintain u.s. national interests. i think he was pretty successful in doing that. bush 43 after 9/11 was convinced of an approach that was much more idealistic, that the u.s. would try to undercut support for terrorism by invading iraq, democratizing the middle east. i mean, really very different from what his father's approach had been. >> now, in your book, "hard line," you have chapters as well on barry goldwater and robert taft. >> right. >> why? >> i chose those two because they were senators who were particularly good indicators of conservative republican opinion at crucial moments. goldwater, of course, was the republican nominee for president in '64, taft ran repeatedly, never quite won. taft represents an era in the '30s and '40s where most

republicans -- especially midwestern republicans -- were more anti-interventionist, and one of the main stories in the book is how eventually republicans abandoned that tradition, and you had the success of eisenhower by the '50s. but it took a long time. and in some ways it's never completely faded if you think about somebody like ron paul today. he's kind of in that taft tradition. i chose goldwater because he was such an important figure as the republican party moved to become more conservative, more southern, more western and, actually, more hawkish on foreign policy. that's what goldwater was. so he was a very important transitional figure even though he lost the presidential election. and he pointed the way toward other republican nominees like reagan and bush 43. >> robert taft ran for president, what, once, twice? >> he ran in -- >> '52? >> '48, '52, yes. >> okay.

was he not elected because of his isolationist policies? >> that was one of the reasons. i think, i think especially for more moderate republicans, for northeastern republicans, for sort of the establishment in the northeast that that was an unacceptable position. although by that time taft, interestingly, was criticizing truman for not being tough enough on communism. so by '52 he actually is, it's his staunch anti-communism that wins him over. kind of cold war assertiveness of foreign policy, and what he and eisenhower had was really more of a series of tactical differences in some ways. they disagreed of how much of a land commitment the u.s. should have in europe. but by the early '50s taft was pretty hard line on anti-communist foreign policy. >> you begin your book at the end of world war ii. is this a republican reaction to

the fdr presidency? is. >> i think republicans were definitely inclined to oppose fdr in many cases, including his foreign policy, because they just, they just opposed him so bitterly on the domestic side. i mean, that was part of it. you see that in both parties back and forth. and they associated fdr's new deal with the liberal internationalism that had won out during the wars, so some of the more conservative republicans were skeptical ant the idea -- about the idea that the u.s. should play a role through multilateral organizations like the united nations after world war ii. >> genuine differences on how america should be involved in the world. that's -- so in that sense these are principled disagreements, right? and they show up in partisan politics. also, of course, both parties used foreign policy sometimes as a kind of political instrument

to critique the other side. it's just, it's one more element of partisan politics. sometimes regardless of what the president's saying or doing. you see that as well. >> ronald reagan won the cold war. >> i think ronald reagan played a vital part in winning the cold war. the way that he did it was to ramp up pressure across the board when he took over in 1981 militarily, economically, diplomatically, idealogically. and i think that was one of the factors that forced the soviet union to really rethink its approach under gorbachev, yes. >> did the end of the cold war change republican foreign policy? >> it did. as for all americans, republicans had to decide, you know, where do we go next? what should america's role in the world be? and for republicans especially prior to communism had been such a unifying force during the cold

war, it left remins sort of confused and divided. there was the sort of pat buchanan wing, more isolationist in the 1990s, there was the henry kissinger type school of thought, there were american nationalists who believed in military strength but were more skeptical of humanitarian intervention, and i think george w. bush ended those disagreements for a while through the concept of the war on terror. but they have resurfaced today. they have resurfaced today with barack obama as president. you see that. >> professor dueck, when lyndon johnson was president, when jimmy carter was president, we saw a vast change in american foreign policy? >> i think carter actually really tried to bring about dramatic change.

i think he thought in '77 he could emphasize issues like human rights and north/south issues and try to move beyond what he called this inordinate fear of communism. it turned out that the sow yet union thought the cold war was still continuing, so it was difficult to declare an end to it. and he, by the end of his presidency, was actually won back to more of a cold warrior position. lyndon johnson, you mentioned, he's best known for vietnam, of course, and his foreign policy. and, actually, most republicans at the time were very firm on the idea that johnson should fight in vietnam, goldwater criticized johnson for not standing up aggressively enough to communism in vietnam. so that was actually the republican position during the johnson years was, if anything, to be more aggressive against north vietnam. >> who makes foreign policy? who creates foreign policy? is it the intellectuals, is it the scholastic types, or is it

presidents? >> it's presidents, yeah. that's what i found. i think that the influence of intellectuals is overrated. i mean, probably the best example in recent years is neoconservativism. a lot of ink was spilled on the subject, neoconservativism. and really if you look at the bush years, talking about george w. bush, it was president bush that made the key decisions whether to invade iraq, how to invade iraq, how to follow up these actions later on. sometimes he did it in ways that neoconservatives didn't like. so at the end of the day you had a group of intellectuals that were influential, but they were not making policy, and they were about as influential as it gets. so foreign policy is not made by intellectuals, it's made by presidents. >> what's neoconservativism? is. >> neoconservativism, the word is usually used to mean a version of republican foreign policy approach which is particularly hawkish, a belief that the u.s. should really promote democracy in the world even by force, if necessary.

um, and, you know, this is, this is something where there are roots in the broader american tradition. it's not exactly unheard of in american history. so i think the word is sometimes over, overused. that concept of neoconservativism tap into a lot of broader republican and american traditions. i mean, most republicans are pretty hawkish on american foreign policy when it gets right down to it. so to say that it was just neoconservatives that somehow, you know, pushed george bush into iraq is really not accurate. >> colin dueck, in your book, "hard line: the republican party and u.s. foreign policy since world war ii," your chapter on richard nixon is entitled richard nixon and henry kissinger. >> right. >> why? >> because henry kissinger was an exceptionally important figure. i only include a handful of people who were not presidents,

and nixon/kissinger really were a team. at the end of the day, nixon was president, and kissinger has said that himself, but he's the best living resident of a certain strain of republican foreign policy thought which i would call realism, and that emphasizes balances of power, the international behavior of other countries, not their internal behavior. the need to kind of carefully coordinate force and diplomacy. the kissinger approach is very, very different from the bush approach. and very different from the reagan approach. and so i think kissinger's deserving of special mention for that reason. >> richard nixon went to china in 1972. what did that do to republican foreign policy expectations? >> well, at the time it was a popular move. i mean -- >> on the republican side as well? >> with the general voting public it was popular, congress. there was a group of, you know,

conservative, kind of consistently conservative republicans like william f. buckley, national review who were very skeptical because their point of view was mao tse-tung is a horrible dictator and a long-term foe of the united states presiding over that totalitarian system, so they didn't like it. but actually the mainstream response in the united states was this makes perfect sense. we're balancing china against the soviet union, it's creative, it's practical, it's constructive. it's helpful. so why not do it? that was the mainstream view at the time, and actually that particular move has had a longstanding legacy. it's never really been entirely rebuked by any president since. >> dwight david eisenhower, first republican president after world warl ii, did he set the tone for republican foreign policy? >> i think he was very important because it was not obvious until eisenhower came in that the average republican in the country would support an engaged foreign policy in the world.

i mean, a lot of republicans were more in that taft tradition, they were more skeptical, and eisenhower made it very clear that he was going to lead the republican party in a more internationalist direction. and it stayed there. um, and there never was a republican president during the cold war that ever really rebuked that. yeah. >> what would you consider to be ike's successes, his failures in foreign policy? >> i think on the whole he was a very successful foreign policy president. i think he, he avoided unnecessary wars. i mean, there were multiple cases over, um, taiwan and over indochina, berlin where he managed to kind of maintain a firm line diplomatically, militarily without actually entangling the u.s. in a third world war. so that was very useful. he also managed to strike a balance between the fiscal responsibility and the u.s.

diplomatic role overseas. he sort of insisted on a cap to military spending as a percentage of the gross national product and in spite of a lot of pressure, he kept it there. by the way, it was much higher than it is today. it was almost 10% throughout eisenhower's years, so that was the context at the time. >> what happens the coups that he got the u.s. involved in; iran, guatemala? >> well, there's no question, he was a very assertive cold warrior. it's ironic, because one of the criticisms john f. kennedy made of the eisenhower years when kennedy ran in 1960 was that eisenhower had not done enough to pursue cold war policies in the third world. actually, eisenhower did a great deal, and as you just mentioned, he pursued covert action because he thought of it as kind of a low-cost way to contain communism or even in some cases roll it back. now, it turns out in the case of

iran, the iranian leader at the time was really more of an iranian nationalist. you know, so that was, that's obviously been a controversy right up to the present. but the idea that eisenhower was, as ken key suggest -- kennedy suggested, just sitting on his hands very far from the truth. yeah. >> gerald ford? >> ford, i think, is underrated. i mean, he's often thought of as sort of a caretaker. i think he was, in a lot of ways, impressive. intelligent. he was kind of a mainstream conservative, internationalist. i think he did his best under the circumstances. it was a very difficult time for u.s. foreign policy because the public and congress was completely fed up with the memory of vietnam and with the possibility of anything that might resemble vietnam. we're talking '74, '75, '76. and the receive yet union and -- soviet union and its allies, cuba, for example, were quite assertive in promoting socialist revolutions in parts of africa,

other parts of the world. and if you read kissinger's memoirs, you see it was a very difficult time to preside over foreign policy. actually, ford was attacked from both left and right, attacked from the left for supposedly propping up, you know, inhumane dictatorships and attacked from the right for not being tough enough on the soviet union. and that's where reagan came from. reagan actually ran against ford in the republican primaries in this 976 saying that detent had failed and that arms control had failed and the answer was to be even tougher. so ford kind of got it from both directions. >> what do you teach here at george mason? is. >> i teach u.s. foreign policy, international security, u.s. defense policy, variety of courses both graduate and undergraduate. >> where'd you go to school? >> i did grad work at oxford and then princeton. >> are economic interests important in foreign policy? >> i think that sometimes they are overestimated, actually, for

their importance. i didn't really find that major decisions for war and peace, for example, are shaped by really narrow economic interests. it's not as though presidents, you know, get on the phone and ask the leaders of major oil companies should we, should we invade iraq, or, you know, something like that. i think the broad context is that pretty much every president wants to maintain a certain kind of international system which is open to peaceful exchange and that this is kind of part of the american vision of a liberal, open international economic order. that's an important factor. but the idea that really special interests drive big decisions for war and peace i didn't want find to be true. now, on trade policy there you really do find interest group activities a major influence. >> such as? >> well, when you have a shift, for example, like today why is it that it's so hard to get trade treaties through congress with colombia, south korea and so on? it's because there are very

strong protection interests in congress, and the president's very aware of that. >> what do you think has been the biggest failure of republican foreign policy in the last 66 years? is. >> i think the failure of the bush administration to adequately prepare for the post-war phase in iraq, to really seriously think through what would be required once the war was over and then you have to recreate some kind of order and stability once saddam hussein was gone. i don't think president bush prepared adequately for that. now, to his credit eventually he got it right. it took a few years, but i think with the surge some credit is due because he could have just walked away. a lot of people were calling on him to just walk away. you remember 2006 was very up popular to be in iraq -- unpopular to be in iraq, and he really staked his presidency on the surge, as it was called, and it worked. you know, if it hadn't been for

the surge, probably iraq would have been in much worse shape today. it would have continued to spiral into absolute violent civil conflict. so, you know, bush had these qualities of very tenacious, almost stubbornness, and sometimes he got it right, and sometimes he got it wrong. but it was sort of the package deal. and in the end, it turned out to be useful, actually work the surge. >> why is it that it seems in public opinion polls democratic presidents have been more popular abroad than republican presidents? >> that's a good question. i think when you say abroad, you may, you may really be talking about western europe. i mean, you find that, for example, bush actually was not unpopular in, you know, sub-saharan africa, israel, the philippines, poland. where he really was unpopular was in western europe, and where the contrast is sharpest with obama is western europe. and so that's, when people talk about world opinion, that's really what they often mean.

but you could also ask yourself what does it really amount to, i mean, what are the -- what specific concessions have governments made in france or germany to the u.s. because of a more or less popular american president? i mean, sometimes it doesn't really amount to much in concrete policy terms. governments make these judgments, i think, for their own reasons. >> professor dueck, do presidents get credit for less than major or different foreign policies such as president bush in africa where he increased aid to africa, he increased the aids budget, etc., do they get credit for to more or less sideline issues, and is that fair to call them sideline issues? >> yeah. sometimes they don't get as much credit as they should. i think if you remember the 2008 republican convention, a lot of attention was put on that initiative because i think the bush administration was rightly proud of it and wanted to highlight it. and they knew it was something, also, that was not especially controversial. so, but, you know, at the end of

the day you have to say that the defining decision under bush was the invasion of iraq. he's going to be judged on that one way or the other, and we have yet to see how it's turned out. right now it's 2011. i mean, you know, we'll see over a period of years whether iraq stabilizes, whether it's a stable, friendly democracy, and bush will continue to be judged and rejudged based on how iraq turns out. it's not over yet. >> how'd you get interested in this topic? >> i can't remember when i wasn't. i've always been interested in this topic. [laughter] yeah. >> is there a nonfiction author or book you'd like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@cspan.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> here's a short author interview from c-span's campaign 2012 bus as it travels the country. >> karen beckwith, "political women and american democracy."

how did you decide which essays to include in this work? >> my co-editors and i organized with a grant from the aaron berg foundation, the project on american democracy at the university of notre dame that we would convene, um, by our stilt the best scholars on women in politics in the u.s. not only in the u.s., but scholars who were working on u.s. women in politics. and so we brought together a range of people, um, whose research we knew well and, um, convened for a two-day conference at notre dame after which -- at that conference we discussed all the manuscripts that constitute the chapters of these books, of this book and had some commentary about it and discussion and then put it together as an edited collection which cambridge university press published in 2008. >> describe the role of women described in this book. >> well, there are several emphases in the book, so let me tell you, first, what we're not

doing in this book. we are not looking at public policy, per se, not looking at women in the executive because even in 2008 there were so few women in the executive and not yet a major female candidate for the nomination for president of a major political party in the united states. as very few women at the executive level which meant that the research wasn't there to really support a good discussion, and finally, we didn't address women in the judiciary. so what did we address? we looked at the behavior of women as voters, the behavior of women as candidates for office both state and national office, behavior of women within political parties, the behavior of women once elected to national office. we also have a few chapters that look at the gendered nature of u.s. political institutions as well as u.s. politics for women in politics in the context of comparative politics; that is, what does the situation for women in politics look like in the u.s. compared to the rest of the world. the picture there is not so pleasant, actually.

we have one of the least propitious electoral systems at the national level for women which is a single-member plurality system with some modifications at the state level for the electoral college we also have only two major political parties which are informal in their internal construction, have no clear formal, um, instructions for becoming a candidate, um, offer very little, um, clear structural means by which women can work the party, so to speak, to increase women's candidacies. so there are lots of disadvantages that women have in the united states in terms of actually achieving elective office. >> so in relation to the political parties, um, as a woman voter what are the findings related to, you know, encouraging participation directly related to women? >> well, there are some interesting things about women in politics in the united states that make women, in fact, the politically relevant demographic category. first, there are or more women than men in the voting

electorate. secondly, women have slightly higher registration rates than do men, and women turn out at slightly higher percentages than do men. and the larger number, absolute number of women combined with women's heightened turnout, um, makes for a big electoral impact. women also are disproportionately democratic. um, this is true across all age groups and it's also true across all, um, racial groups. so racial and ethnic groups, women still have a slight performance for the democratic party compared to men. so when we come into an election, things like turnout and the range of issues that might attract women are very important. women, um, are more likely than men to vote for the democratic presidential candidate. that's been the case since 1992. that gap has been between two percentage points to five percentage points depending upon the polls that you look at. but nonetheless, this is a democratic advantage in the electorate, um, for the democratic party, um, in general because of women.

the absolute numbers, the turnout and the preference for the democratic party. now, the issues that seem to, um, mobilize women and attract, um, their vote have to do with social welfare issues, um, have to do with foreign policy issues and also to a certain extent so-called morality issues. but on these women vary from men in different directions. so, for example, on issues like same-sex marriage, women are much less opposed to that than are men, for example. not by a huge margin, but nonetheless, there's a difference there. women are more concerned with, um, foreign policy/security issues, um, and that can, um, have an impact on women's vote. and finally, women are more concerned about social welfare issues including things like health care, employment, the state of the economy, education. >> with a woman candidate for president coming into the campaign, do you see those prefers changing, um, in 2012? or do you, based on your research, do you think that they'll largely remain the same? >> well, first of all, i see no

female candidate coming to the presidential candidacy in 2012. um, there are only two on the list that i know of, sarah palin -- who has not yet declared -- and michele bachmann who is doing very poorly right now in early returns or early poll results in the republican party, um, debates and in the polling numbers for her. i don't see either of them being the ultimate candidate for the republican party. and on the democratic side, all things being equal, um, the current president, barack obama, will be the party's candidate, and so that will foreclose any opportunity for a woman, um, in that party to come forward. so i see no presence for women as presidential candidates in 2012. um, let me do say, however, that, um, some polling data -- the most recent i've seen has only been from 2008 coming in very early in the 2008 presidential primaries. um, about 87% of americans are willing to say that they would vote for a qualified woman, um,

regardless of sex. that there would be -- they would be as willing to vote for a woman as to vote for a man. um, americans are more likely, more willing to vote for someone who's african-american or someone who's jewish for president than they are for a woman, and i think that number is slightly lower than had been the previous results because in 2008 there was a clear potential female candidate, and that was hillary clinton on the democratic side who, ultimately, failed to win the nomination. >> so what are some recommendations for women in that, um, that position, in an electable position or running for office? does that matter come up in your book? is that something that you touch on? >> well, we don't turn to the presidential specifically, but we do look at women's candidacies for lower level office. um, so a couple of recommendations. um, and these aren't relations for women. let me just make clear, we only need about 4,000 women nationwide to contest and win elections to have, um, ec quit

bl -- equitable representation in the senate, house and statehouses. there aren't that many offices that requires that we need a million qualified women. i think we can find, say, 4,000, 4,5 o 0 quaffed women to run. the problem is with political parties and the unavailability of access to candidacies both through the incumbency effect -- if we have, um, as we do 83% of congress, um, consisting of men and most of those men are incumbents, it's going to be very, very difficult for new openings for new candidates whether or not those candidates are women. and so part of it has to do with political parties' willingness to persuade members of congress, seated members of congress to step down, willing to support women challenging incumbents within their own parties, willingness to recruit women for office. right now, um, the so-called big money people on the republican side are tryi