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By March 2022, a remarkable 144 countries had signed onto the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)--China's massive investment and infrastructure development program--with significant implications for US foreign policy. Edward Ashbee explores how the US has reacted to this global expansion of Chinese power, tracing the arc of policy responses to the BRI from its inception in 2013 through early 2022.

Introduction: charting the Right -- Intercurrence and its implications -- The state and processes of change --Embedded neoliberalism -- The advent of crisis and the building of narratives -- Rallying around the Gadsden Flag -- Britain, retrenchment and the 'big society' -- Chafing, abrasion and the contemporary Right -- A permanently leaner state?

Somos Americanos : Mexican immigration and US national identity in the twenty-first century / Carl Pedersen -- Mexican mestiz identity in the twenty-first century capital and labor / Helene Balslev Clausen -- The other side of the migration story : Mexican women in the US / Silvia E. Giorguli Saucedo, Maria Adela Angoa Perez, and Selene Gaspar Olvera -- From precarious, low-paying jobs in Mexico to precarious, low-paying jobs in the United States / Elaine Levine -- Sending money home : the dynamics of Mexico-US remittances / Mario Villarreal and Megan Davy -- The impact of NAFTA on the Mexican-US border region / Elena Labastida-Tovar -- Transnational social networks and international trade : the border region / Magdalena Barros Nock -- Beyond border crossing and soulless places : the role of Mexico's northern border cities in the construction of transnational social spaces / Cristobal Mendoza -- Changing representations of the border / Mario Alberto Velazquez -- Boundaries in border films - the other as "our" redemption / Jan Gustafsson -- Baldwin Park, historical narratives and American identities / Anne Magnussen -- Textual representations of the border and border-crossers : constructing latino enemies in the New York Times / Ken Henriksen -- Mexican immigration and the question of identity in the United states politics and public policy / Raphael Gomez -- Immigration and the 2006 US mid-term elections / Edward Ashbee -- Immigration, social policy, and politics in the US / Alex Waddan -- From the margin to the middle? The origin, transformation, and direction of the minutemen / Pia Moller -- Migrants, votes, and the 2006 Mexican presidential elections / Helene Balslev Clausen and Mario Alberto Velazquez -- Sovereignty along El Rio Bravo/The Rio Grande : changes in US immigration law and Mexican foreign relations law / Ernesto Hernandez-Lopez

AbstractAlthough it never formally participated, the British government described the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and relations with China more broadly in strikingly positive terms between 2015 and 2019. Nonetheless, by late 2019 and amidst a sharp deterioration in relations, the prospect of the UK joining the BRI had more or less disappeared from the government's agenda. This article argues that there was not a ruptural policy break. While there was a turnaround, there were also significant numbers of short-run policy zigzags. The principal reason for this instability, the article argues, lies in the relatively weak character of the UK-China policy regime which was an amalgam that sought to accommodate and integrate three different ideational clusters. Such amalgams are inherently unstable and policies drawn from them are likely to change quickly in response to internal tensions as well as exogenous events and developments. Given this, British policy towards China moved quickly and erratically between a "golden era", a repudiation of this as "naïve", and the designation of China as a "systemic challenge". Within this context, expressions of enthusiasm for the BRI were displaced by uninterest or scepticism.

Commentators were struck by the ambition of the American Jobs Plan, the US$2.6 trillion infrastructure proposals put forward by President Biden during 2021. The article considers the reasons why, despite hyper-partisanship and entrenched institutional obstacles that were to doom many of the proposals, the Biden administration put forward plans on a scale that dwarfed those of earlier reforming presidents. It argues that a large part of the answer lies in the character of framing processes and shifting perceptions of China. A policy that cannot be framed in ways deemed to be credible cannot secure traction. The US turn against Beijing and the concept of 'strategic competition' provided the Biden administration and Democrats with the basis for constructing a frame that legitimized their hopes of modernizing and transforming the structural character of the American economy so as to fend off the economic and strategic challenge posed by China. Although much of the Plan did not come to legislative fruition, this was a frame that the Biden White House saw as a way of building a broad coalitional bloc that could advance a progressive economic agenda.

Abstract
Whereas the Obama administration had equivocated, the Trump White House declared its vehement opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative (bri). This shift went together with the Trump administration's designation of the People's Republic of China (prc) as a strategic competitor and a broader deterioration in bilateral relations. However, as it began to posit alternatives to the bri, the Trump administration fell back on the policy thinking of the established foreign policy community. In doing this, it tacitly accepted the importance of soft power and the adoption of strategies requiring close cooperation with allies and partners so as to develop regional infrastructural "connectivity" projects. The White House thereby stepped back from the unilateralism, "principled realism," and reliance upon hard power that had defined Donald J. Trump's 2015–2016 presidential campaign. Nonetheless, U.S. efforts to develop policy alternatives to the bri were limited, unstable, and variegated. The Trump administration's actions in other policy arenas often stymied efforts to counter the prc and initiatives such as the build Act and "Prosper Africa" received scant resources. On the basis of this policy pattern, the article argues that policy communities at times can "harness" other counter-positioned, political currents, but ongoing ideational stresses and abrasion will inevitably characterize the process.

Although embedded neoliberalism takes different forms, it is nonetheless defined by its commitment to 'roll back' the state in terms of its role as a social provider, as a mediator between capital and labour, and as an ameliorator of perceived market failure. Having said this, the British state, certainly if measured by taking government spending as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP), has proved stubbornly resistant to retrenchment processes. Against this background, some on the right have periodically turned to social recapitalization and ways of developing greater civic engagement and voluntary effort in place of state provision. Such projects seemed to offer the promise of redefining the relationship between the individual and the state. Yet, while often seen as communitarian and thereby the antithesis of neoliberalism, such projects constitute a counterpart or corollary. Nonetheless, although the Conservative-led government in the UK has through the austerity measures pursued from 2010 onwards been able to 'shrink' the state (considered as a proportion of GDP), it has not had the capacity or commitment to bring about social recapitalization. Although some broader inclusion initiatives have been pursued, the 'Big Society' itself has made only a limited impact. The history of neoliberalism suggests that the shrinkage of the British state may therefore, as a consequence, be vulnerable to later 'roll back'.

Barack Obama's election as US president gave rise to hopes of radical reform. Indeed, comparisons were drawn with 1932 and there were references to 'realignment'. Many on the left were quickly disappointed by the limited character of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the abandonment of proposed reforms, and the concessions that were made to ensure the passage of healthcare legislation. Some explained these failures through agency‐based accounts and pointed to what they saw as personal weakness. Others stressed the structural constraints imposed by the asymmetric character of partisan polarisation, the political weight of capital, and the institutional character of the American state. The article argues that the character of the 'Obama coalition' should also be considered. It has been relatively narrow particularly when compared with the 'Roosevelt coalition'. In particular, it failed to draw business fractions into its ranks.