2016’s Race to Change the World

6 Nov 2015 - 7 Nov 2015

All day

CRASSH (SG1&2), Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, CB3 9DT

Description

Description

Registration will open in September 2015.

Conveners

Steven Schrage (University of Cambridge)

Summary

New U.S. presidents can make decisions and chart new policy courses that reshape global politics and alter world history. From the decision to invade Iraq to the current president’s push for a negotiated solution on Iran’s nuclear program, these presidents’ decisions can have ramifications not only for war and peace, but for a range of economic and social issues that reach far beyond America’s borders. As the world prepares for the next American president to step onto the world stage through 2016’s election, CRASSH will convene leading academics, presidential candidate advisors and both UK and international foreign policy officials to explore how this next U.S. president is preparing to impact the wider world.

At this conference (held a year before the U.S. election), UK and international academics will explore the degree to which and how a new U.S. president might alter the global political landscape, and the scholarly frameworks for exploring this topic. In addition, former top U.S. officials along with key 2016 presidential campaign advisors will detail where potential new presidents are seeking to lead the world and how they view America’s role abroad. Finally, UK and other international officials will be invited to provide practioners’ perspectives from outside the U.S. political process on how changes in the U.S. presidency can alter international dynamics and to highlight the critical issues on the international agenda that will confront the next president.

Through this mix of interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners from different countries, the conference will utilize a range of academic and policy approaches to examine a cutting edge area of research that–while largely unexplored–has real world consequences for a wide range of individuals and nations around the globe. It will provide a diverse set of academic lenses as well as unique data from practitioners to help formulate new approaches for examining both how potential presidents’ develop their foreign policies–and the ramifications those policies can have on global affairs. This academic contribution promises not only to have major relevance as scholars look at the 2016 election’s impact. It seeks to build a foundation for scholars to examine the future impacts of U.S. elections that will occur every fours years as one of the largest players on the international stage faces the prospect of changing its president—its primary leader responsible for how this key nations’ broad global powers and capabilities are mobilized to reshape international affairs.