A Preliminary Analysis On American Neoconservatism And Its Influence

American neoconservatism is a trend of thought, which emerged in the late 1960s and earlyl970s.Neoconservatism has enormous influence on Regan and Bush Jr. Administration in domestic and foreign policy. The thesis tries to prove that neoconservatism has enormous political energy, and can be influential in a specific historical stage. Its ideas are dangerous and have become a threat to the stability and security of the world, especially to the security of China.Besides introduction and conclusion, this thesis is divided into four parts.Introduction clarifies the intentions of writing this thesis. It gives additionally a concise introduction of four parts of the thesis.Part one is directed at the domestic and international situations that bred neoconservatism. Domestic changes which led to the emergence of neoconservatism include: the failure of Great Society plan, the Civil Rights Movement, Feminism Movement, Gay Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. The Cold War was escalating and developed in a direction favorable to the Soviet Union. The situation of that time helped to bring about neoconservatism's split fromliberalism.Part two is contributed to a detailed study of five representative figures of neoconservatism. At the end of the part, two important journals of the political school are disclosed.In the third part, the neoconservative views are discussed. Respecting the market, traditional values and institutions, neoconservatism is not at all hostile to the idea of the welfare state, but it opposes to the paternalistic state. Anti-communism is one characteristic of neoconservatism. The part offers a definition of neoconservatism, a further analysis of neoconservatism and a discussion of the differences between neoconservatism and traditional conservatism.The fourth part aims at analyzing the influence of neoconservatism. First, its influence on Reagan Administration is examined. Reagan's victory in the 1980s fulfilled several neoconservative hopes and still raised more. Through examining its domestic and foreign policy, we can conclude that Reagan Administration is a neoconservative government. And then this part explores neoconservatism's influence to Bush Jr. government. The Bush administration cut taxes, increased defense expenditures and adopted a much tougher preemptive foreign strategy. Obviously, neoconservatives coerced the government. Finally, the part deals with neoconservatism's influence to Sino-U.S. relations. American policy to China reflects its hegemony strategy. "China threat" and "China collapse" theories and events that emerged in 1999 demonstrate theprofound influence of neoconservatism on Sino-U.S. relations. After Bush Jr. took office, China became a "strategic competition partner" of the U.S.Conclusion sums up the whole thesis and discusses the future of neoconservatism and emphasizes we should cherish no illusions to Bush Administration to drop its hard line policy to China and we should prepare for vicious attempts of American neoconservatism..