The Library
Leading from behind – American exceptionalism and President Obama’s Post-American vision of hegemony
Tools
Löfflmann, Georg (2015) Leading from behind – American exceptionalism and President Obama’s Post-American vision of hegemony. Geopolitics, 20 (2). pp. 308-332. doi:10.1080/14650045.2015.1017633 ISSN 1465-0045.
|
PDF
WRAP-leading-behind-American-exceptionalism-Obama-Lofflmann-2015.pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (620Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2015.1017633
Abstract
This article explores the discursive performance and political significance of ‘American exceptionalism’ under President Obama. Moving beyond a critical examination of geopolitical identity, it investigates how representations of exceptionalism, understood as ideational construct of uniqueness and superiority, are linked to practices of US foreign and security policy that confirm, but also contest, established notions of American leadership in world politics. A particular focus lies on the 2012 presidential campaign, and how diverging ‘exceptionalist’ visions between Obama and Mitt Romney testified to competing ideas for American primacy and cooperative engagement. The article will further examine the cases of ‘leading from behind’ in Libya, American non-intervention against Assad in Syria, and US reactions to current crises concerning Ukraine and ISIS. The contextualisation of these episodes in contemporary, geopolitical discourse reveals how the practice of US foreign and security policy under Obama is shaped by a conflicted and paradoxical vision of post-American hegemony.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Subjects: | J Political Science > JZ International relations | ||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Exceptionalism -- United States, Hegemony, Obama, Barack | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Geopolitics | ||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||
ISSN: | 1465-0045 | ||||||
Official Date: | 14 April 2015 | ||||||
Dates: |
|
||||||
Volume: | 20 | ||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||
Page Range: | pp. 308-332 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.1080/14650045.2015.1017633 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 8 November 2017 | ||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 8 November 2017 |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year