Power and German Foreign Policy

"What will German foreign policy look like in 2015? Crawford dares to speculate by making a provocative argument: What drives German policy is its power position in Europe. Carefully examining German diplomatic and military maneuvers in the Balkans, its role in European Monetary Union, and its leadership in curbing Europe's proliferation of WMD technology, Crawford shows how German power is linked to its 'embedded hegemony' in Europe and to the changing state of its economy. In each case she shows how those linkages interact to shape foreign policy. The more robust the economy, the more Germany's power is enhanced and used to shape and underwrite European cooperation. But continued economic stagnation has led Germany to abandon that role and assert a narrower self-interest. Crawford further argues that Germany's changing power position activates and selects particular domestic forces - culture, party structure and politics, interest groups, or simply the beliefs and power of central decision-makers - to shape foreign policy preferences and policy outcomes."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.