After the Cold War, America’s leaders hoped China could be integrated into the rules-based international order and might even become more like the West. By the late 2010s, their optimism was dead. In The End of Engagement, David M. McCourt traces the intense personal, professional and policy struggles over China in US foreign policy since 1989. Drawing on 120 original interviews with America’s China experts – from former policymakers and diplomats to prominent think tankers and academics – McCourt chronicles the rise and recent fall of ‘engagement’ with Beijing. While there are numerous explanations for why America moved away from engagement with China in the last decade, McCourt shows that none consider how important foreign policy knowledge communities have been in impacting policy. Adopting a unique, sociological perspective, this book offers an intimate look into the world of America’s national security experts as they have struggled to make sense of changes in China and the remaining question of what comes next.

David M. McCourt is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. He is an international political sociologist. His primary research interests lie with the social sources of state action in international politics, with an empirical focus on the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. He also is interested in theory – both sociological and international.