Professor Inderjeet Parmar

Inderjeet Parmar studied Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Sociology at the University of London. He obtained his doctorate at the University of Manchester. He joined the Department of Government as a lecturer in 1996. From 1991, he was lecturer in American Studies. He is a member of the Working Group on Think Tanks of the Social Science Research Council, USA.

He is currently serving as Vice Chair of the British International Studies Association, co-convenor of the BISA Working Group on US Foreign Policy, co-editor of the Routledge book series on US Foreign Policy. He was Treasurer of the British International Studies Association, 2001-2004.

His research interests focus on the history, politics and sociology of Anglo-American foreign policy elites over the past 100 years, specifically embodied in organisations such as philanthropic foundations, think tanks, policy research institutes, university foreign affairs institutes, and state agencies.

He has, more recently, become interested in Anti-Americanism, post-9-11 US foreign policy shifts, and the changing character of the US foreign policy Establishment. Finally, he is working on a long-term project on why Britain almost invariably backs the United States in wars, from Korea 1950 to Iraq 2003.

My research interests focus on the history, politics and sociology of foreign policy elites, specifically embodied in organisations such as philanthropic foundations, think tanks, policy research insttutes, university foreign affairs institutes, and state agencies.

I have recently become interested in Anti-Americanism, post-9-11 US foreign policy shifts, and the changing character of the US foreign policy Establishment.

Currently, I am engaged in research on a number of foreign policy elite institutions in the US, especially the Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford and German Marshall Fund of the US , Foundations. In particular, I have researched and written three pieces on the role of US foundations in promoting Americanism and combating anti-Americanism, covering the period from the Cold War to the present era of “globalization”. On the Cold War aspects, an additional research paper has been web published by the Centre for Policy Studies, Central European University, Budapest, as part of its project on anti-Americanism; [Download pdf]

On anti-Americanism and the foundations today, a chapter has appeared in a volume edited by Brendon O’Connor and M. Griffiths, The Rise of Anti-Americanism (Routledge, forthcoming 2006).

My principal project over the next two years is a research monograph entitled Foundations of the American Century: Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and US Foreign Affairs, 1920-2005. It examines the origins, aims and development of the major US foundations, their roots in the corporate economy and their increasingly close links with the American state. The book will show that the foundations countered and undermined isolationism in the 1920s and 1930s, built an “internationalist” community at the same time, developed international relations as a discipline in the universities, as well as enhancing the state’s capacity in foreign affairs. During the Cold War, the foundations intervened directly in several key areas of US foreign affairs, including combating anti-Americanism and promoting Americanism in strategic states such as Chile and Indonesia. The book also examines the foundations’ contributions to globalisation processes in the late 20th century and their continuing contributions to the maintenance and consolidation of American hegemony after September 11.

A new project is also being developed on the emergence of a new US foreign policy consensus – “terror war liberalism” – that examines the impact of 9-11 on US foreign policy politics. The first part of this project was published as “Catalysing Events, Think Tanks, and American Foreign Policy Shifts: A comparative analysis of the impacts of Pearl Harbor 1941 and 11 September 2001,” Government and Opposition (40) 1 2005. The second element of this project was presented at the American National Identities Conference at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford in November 2006, the Keele Norface Seminar in May 2007, and at the ECPR meetings at Pisa, 2007. It is entitled "A New Conservative Foreign Policy Establishment and Consensus?"

I am also researching the social, corporate, religious and other characteristics of the neo-conservative foreign policy establishment, and its numerous interconnections with the Bush administration and with traditional liberal internationalist think tanks and foundations, such as the Council on Foreign Relations.

Finally, I am contracted to write a book (for Manchester University Press) on why Britain invariably backs the United States in wars, from Korea 1950 to Iraq 2003. The first tangible results of this research were published as: “ ‘ I’m proud of the British Empire ’: Why Tony Blair Backs George W. Bush,” The Political Quarterly (April 2005).

I am currently unavailable for teaching. I am, however, interested in providing doctoral supervision in the broad area of US foreign policy and Anglo-American relations.

Publications Database

Research monographs

• (forthcoming) Foundations of the American Century: Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and US Foreign Affairs, 1920-2005
• (2004) Think Tanks and Power in Foreign Policy: A Comparative Study of the Role and Influence of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1939-1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
• (1995) Special Interests, The State and the Anglo-American Alliance , 1939-1945 (London: Frank Cass).

Articles, chapters and working papers

• “Liberal-Imperial Brain Trust: The Political Significance of the Princeton Project on National Security”, Working Paper of the Centre for International Politics, University of Manchester (forthcoming 2007)
• “Anti-Americanism and the major foundations,” in B. O’Connor and M. Griffiths, eds., The Rise of Anti-Americanism (Routledge, 2006)
• “Challenging Elite Anti-Americanism and Sponsoring Americanism in the Cold War: US Foundations, Henry Kissinger’s Harvard International Seminar, and the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies,” Traverse 2006;“Catalysing Events, Think Tanks, and American Foreign Policy Shifts: A comparative analysis of the impacts of Pearl Harbor 1941 and 11 September 2001 ,” Government and Opposition 40 1 2005
• “Selling Americanism, Combatting Anti-Americanism: The Historic Role of American Foundations,” 2005: http://www.ceu.hu/cps/pub/pub_papers_antiamer_parmar.pdf
• “Conceptualising the American State-Private Network during the Cold War,” H. Laville and H. Wilford, eds., The US Government, Citizen Groups and the Cold War: the state-private network ( London : Routledge, 2006)
• “ ‘another important group that needs more cultivation’: The CFR and the mobilization of Black Americans for Interventionism, 1939-1941,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 27 5 2004;
• Inderjeet Parmar, "Institutes of International Affairs," in D. Stone, A. Denham, and M. Garnett, eds., Think Tank Traditions ( Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2004);
• "Anglo-American Elites in the Inter-War Years: Idealism and Power in the Intellectual Roots of Chatham House and the Council on Foreign Relations," International Relations vol. 16, 1, April 2002;
• "American foundations and the development of international knowledge networks," Global Networks vol.2 no.1 January 2002;
• " ‘to relate knowledge and action…’: The Rockefeller Foundation’s Impact on Foreign Policy Thinking During America’s Rise to Globalism, 1939-45," Minerva 40 2002
• "Resurgent academic interest in the Council on Foreign Relations," Politics (Volume 21 Number 1, February 2001)
• "The Law and Order Policy of the Labour Government," in D.Coates and P. Lawler, Eds., New Labour in Power ( Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2000);
• "Engineering Consent: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Mobilisation of American Public Opinion, 1939-1945," Review of International Studies (January 2000);
• "Edward Mead Earle and the Rise of Realism in the US Academy," Manchester Working Papers in Politics , 2000;
• "The Carnegie Corporation and the Mobilisation of Opinion During the United States ’ Rise to Globalism, 1939-45," Minerva (Winter 1999);
• "Mobilising America for an Internationalist Foreign Policy: The Role of the Council on Foreign Relations," Studies in American Political Development (Fall 1999);
• "The Issue of State Power: A Case Study of the Council on Foreign Relations," Journal of American Studies , April 1995, pp. 73-95;
• "Intellectuals, Foreign Policy and the State," Manchester Papers on Intellectuals, the State and Society , September 1994;
• "Chatham House, the Foreign Policy Process, and the Making of the Anglo-American Alliance ," in Andrea Bosco and Cornelia Navari, Eds., Chatham House and British Foreign Policy 1919-1945. The Royal Institute of International Affairs During the Inter-War Period (London: Lothian Foundation Press, 1994) pp. 299-318;
• "Chatham House and the Anglo-American Alliance ," Diplomacy and Statecraft , March 1992, pp. 23-47;
• "The Foreign Policy of the FBI [Federation of British Industries]: The Anglo-American Alliance, 1938-1945," Business Archives , November 1990, pp.42-55

 

Phd Students

I am currently main supervisor for four PhD students and co-supervisor for another two:

• David Makarenko-Smith, A New Grand Strategic Consensus in US Foreign Policy? (ESRC funded)
• Faisal Almutairi, Democracy Promotion, Geopolitics and Oil as Factors in US Policy Towards the Gulf States
• Ahed Al-Huis, American images of Syria as a Factor in US Middle Eastern  Policies
• Katy Allison, US Women’s Human Rights Policy
• Ambrose Akor, The Media and Public Opinion as Factors in British Foreign Policy Towards Iraq