U.S. Foreign Policy

Dr Phil Mundo, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Environmental Studies and Sustainability Program, Drew University
5 Tuesday afternoons, 1:30 – 3:30 pm, September 15, 22, 29; October 6 and 13, 2026

This course examines U.S. foreign policy from the founding to the present. It begins with a discussion of how practitioners and scholars have thought about U.S. foreign policy. The course then reviews the origins and history of U.S. foreign policy, focusing on key events and turning points. Throughout this part of the course, we will examine competing explanations of how and why the U.S. has acted in the international system. The last part of the course considers recent U.S. foreign policy in light of this historical and thematic context. 

Class Schedule: 

Class 1: 9 15 2026:

• Part 1: Scope and Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy 

• Part 2: Ways to Think About Foreign Policy

Class 2: 9 22 2026:

• Part 1: Founding to the Start of the 20th Century 

• Part 2: Early 20th Century to WW2 

Class 3: 9 29 2026:

• Part 1: Post WW2 to the Present: Key Events 

• Part 2: Post WW2 to the Present: Themes and Analysis 

Class 4: 10 6 2026:

• Part 1: Regional U.S. Foreign Policy 

• Part 2: Regional U.S. Foreign Policy (continued) 

Class 5: 10 13 2026:

• Part 1: Contemporary U.S. Foreign Policy and Its Critics 

• Part 2: Wrap Up

After earning a PhD in political science at the University of California – Berkeley and spending several years working at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.,  Dr Phil Mundo joined the Drew faculty in 1986 where he taught courses on American Politics and Public policy and directed Drew’s Washington Semester Program and the London Semester Program.  Professor Mundo’s research interests include political participation in the U.S. along with trade and environmental policies. Just retired, Mundo gives public lectures and continues work in his research areas.

Selected publications include Business Influence in State-Level Environmental Policy” in M. Kraft and S. Kamieniecki (ed.) Business and Environmental Policy: Corporate Interests in the American Political System (MIT Press, 2007) [with B. Rabe]. National Politics in a Global Economy: The Domestic Sources of U.S. Trade Policy (Georgetown University Press, 1999). Interest Groups: Cases and Characteristics (Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1992).