One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.56 (973 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0300168322 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-09-17 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
. All rights reserved. Stanger is also troubled by the Pentagon's usurpation (and militarizing) of diplomatic and nation-building roles previously under the aegis of the State Department. These are vital, well-made and worrying points—readers will hope that the executive branch will heed the author's call to take the plunge and re-imagine government itself. From Publishers Weekly Stanger, professor of international politics and economics at Middlebury College, comes to admirably nuanced conclusions in this important assessment of the trend of outsourcing critical tasks in the areas of foreign aid, defense, diplomacy and domestic security. She argues that the government must recognize that power in the 21st century flows from new sources and complacency at this stage threatens the government with
The outsourcing of U.S. efforts abroad.The growing use of private contractors predates the Bush Administration, and while his era saw the practice rise to unprecedented levels, Stanger argues that it is both impossible and undesirable to turn back the clock and simply re-absorb all outsourced functions back into government. Through explorations of the evolution of military outsourcing, the privatization of diplomacy, our dysfunctional homeland security apparatus, and the slow death of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Stanger shows that the requisite public-sector expertise to implement foreign policy no longer exists. The successful activities of charities and NGOs, coupled with the growing participation of multinational corporations in development efforts, make a new approach essential. Provocative and far-reaching, One Nation Under Contract presents a bold vision of wh
Should be Required Reading for Anyone Who Wants to Understand Foreign Policy Today Allison Stanger has written a tour de force -- the first book that succinctly and accurately describes the new reality of 21st Century foreign policy -- and the urgent need for our government to adapt. Dr. Stanger lays out in lucid prose and deeply researched detail the outsourcing of American government -- not only in the well-documented military sphere, but in our development aid, diplomacy, and even homeland security arenas. She shows h. Good Material, but Too Verbose Loyd Eskildson The intent of this book is to highlight the implications of privatizing government policy, that present practice is scandalous, and that undoing government privatization is not the answer. Unfortunately, Stanger's overly academic treatise fails in all three missions, though her anecdotes and documentation of some of the numbers involved make the book worthy of a quick skim.The Dept. of Defense is a good place to start. Stanger points out t. Very Disappointing This book has a lot of problems:1. Poorly written -- the author saps the life out of what could be a very interesting topic with boring prose and endless repetition of stock phrases that the book fails to imbue with any concrete meaning. (e.g., "We need smart privatization that leverages public-private cooperation.")2. It doesn't even bother to explain the details of how contracting actually works. It would have been helpful to provide a f
Allison Stanger is Chair of the Political Science Department at Middlebury College.