Transparency and American Primacy in World Politics

Marquardt (Lake Forest College) argues that efforts by the United States to promote transparency abroad, in militarily-security affairs in particular, can be understood as part of its strategy to maintain primacy in international affairs. By placing the onus of transparency on international rivals, the American system seeks to discipline their behavior and cast doubt on their political aims and ambitions. Further, this demand that other countries open themselves to outside scrutiny frequently serves to heighten tensions and suspicions that advocates of transparency claim they are trying to reduce. He defends this argument about the relationship between transparency policy and American power through an analysis of the role of transparency in its domestic political institutions and case studies of Woodrow Wilson's transparency initiatives at the close of World War I, American transparency policy towards the Soviet Union at different periods of the Cold War, and transparency policy towards China after the Cold War. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

James J. Marquardt, Assistant Professor of Politics, Lake Forest College, USA