Over the past century, presidential constructions of crises have spurred recurring redefinitions of U.S. interests, as crusading advance has alternated with realist retrenchment. For example, Harry Truman and George W. Bush constructed crises that justified liberal crusades in the Cold War and War on Terror. In turn, each was followed by realist successors, as Dwight Eisenhower and Barack Obama limited U.S. commitments, but then struggled to maintain popular support.

To make sense of such dynamics, this book synthesizes constructivist and historical institutionalist...

Over the past century, the rise and fall of economic policy orders has been shaped by a paradox, as intellectual and institutional stability have repeatedly caused market instability and crisis. To highlight such dynamics, this volume offers a theory of economic ideas in political time. The author counters paradigmatic and institutionalist views of ideas as enabling self-reinforcing path dependencies, offering an alternative social psychological argument that ideas which initially reduce uncertainty can subsequently fuel misplaced certainty and crises. Historically, the book then traces the...

Over the past century, the rise and fall of economic policy orders has been shaped by a paradox, as intellectual and institutional stability have repeatedly caused market instability and crisis. To highlight such dynamics, this volume offers a theory of economic ideas in political time. The author counters paradigmatic and institutionalist views of ideas as enabling self-reinforcing path dependencies, offering an alternative social psychological argument that ideas which initially reduce uncertainty can subsequently fuel misplaced certainty and crises. Historically, the book then traces the...