The Review's Evolving Relevance for U.S. Foreign Policy 1906–2006

We review the relevance of the international relations articles published in the first 100 years of the Review for American foreign policy. We define a spectrum of “policy relevance” and give a brief overview of the Review's changing relationship to American foreign policy as the journal, the profession, and the foreign policy process evolved over the last century. We then look at the Review's role in key periods in American foreign policy, focusing in particular on the example of the democratic peace literature. We conclude that although the content of the journal has moved away from early aspirations to near-term and direct policy relevance, the journal has evolved toward basic research that influences American foreign policies by affecting what scholars teach students, publish in policy journals, write in newspaper op-eds, say on the media, advise political leaders, and do when they are themselves in public office.