Defending the National Interest

Defending the National Interest PDF Author: Stephen D. Krasner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691219516
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Stephen Krasner's assumption of a distinction between state and society is the root of his argument for the superiority of a statist interpretation of American foreign policy. Here he challenges the two dominant and rival interpretations of the relationship between state and society: interest group liberalism and Marxism. He contends that the state is an autonomous entity acting on behalf of the national interest, and that state behavior cannot be explained by group or class interest. On the basis of fifteen case studies drawn from extensive public records and published literature on American raw materials policy in the twentieth-century, Professor Krasner provides empirical substance to the debate about the meaning of the "national interest," the importance of bureaucratic politics, and the influence of business on American foreign policy.

Defending the National Interest

Defending the National Interest PDF Author: Stephen D. Krasner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691219516
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Stephen Krasner's assumption of a distinction between state and society is the root of his argument for the superiority of a statist interpretation of American foreign policy. Here he challenges the two dominant and rival interpretations of the relationship between state and society: interest group liberalism and Marxism. He contends that the state is an autonomous entity acting on behalf of the national interest, and that state behavior cannot be explained by group or class interest. On the basis of fifteen case studies drawn from extensive public records and published literature on American raw materials policy in the twentieth-century, Professor Krasner provides empirical substance to the debate about the meaning of the "national interest," the importance of bureaucratic politics, and the influence of business on American foreign policy.

Foreign Policy, Inc.

Foreign Policy, Inc. PDF Author: Lawrence Davidson
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813173213
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Most Americans assume that U.S. foreign policy is determined by democratically elected leaders who define and protect the common good of the citizens and the nation they represent. Increasingly, this conventional wisdom falls short of explaining the real climate in Washington. Well organized private-interest groups are capitalizing on Americans' ignorance of world politics to advance their own agendas. Supported by vast economic resources and powerful lobbyists, these groups thwart the constitutional checks and balances designed to protect the U.S. political system, effectively bullying or buying our national leaders. Lawrence Davidson traces the history, evolution, and growing influence of these private organizations from the nation's founding to the present, and he illuminates their profoundly disturbing impact on the direction of U.S. foreign policy. Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing America's National Interest demonstrates how economic interest groups once drove America's westward expansion and designed the nation's overseas imperial policies. Using the contemporary Cuba and Israel lobbies as examples, Davidson then describes the emergence of political lobbies in the twentieth century and shows how diverse groups with competing ethnic and religious agendas began to organize and shape American priorities abroad. Despite the troubling influence of these specialized lobbies, many Americans remain indifferent to the hijacking of American foreign policy. Americans' focus on local events and their lack of interest in international affairs renders them susceptible to media manipulation and prevents them from holding elected officials accountable for their ties to lobbies. Such mass indifference magnifies the power of these wealthy special interest groups and permits them to create and implement American foreign policy. The result is that the global authority of the United States is weakened, its integrity as an international leader is compromised, and its citizens are endangered. Debilitated by two wars, a tarnished global reputation, and a plummeting economy, Americans, Davidson insists, can no longer afford to ignore the realities of world politics. On its current path, he predicts, America will cease to be a commonwealth of individuals but instead will become an amoral assembly of competing interest groups whose policies and priorities place the welfare of the nation and its citizens in peril.

American Business Abroad and the National Interest

American Business Abroad and the National Interest PDF Author: Herbert Charles Hoover
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description


Defining the National Interest

Defining the National Interest PDF Author: Peter Trubowitz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226813037
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
The United States has been marked by a highly politicized and divisive history of foreign policy-making. Why do the nation's leaders find it so difficult to define the national interest? Peter Trubowitz offers a new and compelling conception of American foreign policy and the domestic geopolitical forces that shape and animate it. Foreign policy conflict, he argues, is grounded in America's regional diversity. The uneven nature of America's integration into the world economy has made regionalism a potent force shaping fights over the national interest. As Trubowitz shows, politicians from different parts of the country have consistently sought to equate their region's interests with that of the nation. Domestic conflict over how to define the "national interest" is the result. Challenging dominant accounts of American foreign policy-making, Defining the National Interest exemplifies how interdisciplinary scholarship can yield a deeper understanding of the connections between domestic and international change in an era of globalization.

Commercial Diplomacy and the National Interest

Commercial Diplomacy and the National Interest PDF Author: Harry Kopp
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780967910819
Category : Diplomacy
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description


The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy

The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy PDF Author: Walter A. McDougall
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300224516
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
A fierce critique of civil religion as the taproot of America’s bid for global hegemony Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Walter A. McDougall argues powerfully that a pervasive but radically changing faith that “God is on our side” has inspired U.S. foreign policy ever since 1776. The first comprehensive study of the role played by civil religion in U.S. foreign relations over the entire course of the country’s history, McDougall’s book explores the deeply infused religious rhetoric that has sustained and driven an otherwise secular republic through peace, war, and global interventions for more than two hundred years. From the Founding Fathers and the crusade for independence to the Monroe Doctrine, through World Wars I and II and the decades-long Cold War campaign against “godless Communism,” this coruscating polemic reveals the unacknowledged but freely exercised dogmas of civil religion that bind together a “God blessed” America, sustaining the nation in its pursuit of an ever elusive global destiny.

Multinationals and the National Interest

Multinationals and the National Interest PDF Author: United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment
Publisher: Congress
ISBN: 9780160419430
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description


United States National Interests in a Changing World

United States National Interests in a Changing World PDF Author: Donald E. Nuechterlein
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813182123
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Although the term national interest has long been used in reference to the foreign policy goals of nations, there has been no generally agreed upon definition of the concept; as a result, Donald E. Nuechterlein contends, there has been a tendency for foreign policy to be determined by institutional prejudice and past policy rather than by a systematic assessment of national interests. By what criterion does a President decide that a given interest is or is not vital-that is, whether he must contemplate defending it by force if other measures fail? In this study Nuechterlein offers a new conceptual framework for the analysis of foreign policy decisions; resting on more precise definitions and distinguishing among the degrees of interest that the United States perceives in the range of foreign policy issues it faces. He also deals with the constitutional problem of checks and balances between the Presidency and Congress in setting the goals of foreign policy, and the influence of private interest groups and the media on the definition of national interest. Underlining the need for constant reassessment of priorities in a rapidly changing international environment, Nuechterlein illustrates his analysis by drawing on the American experience in foreign affairs since World War II. A case study of the American involvement in Southeast Asia describes how six presidents, beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, viewed United States interests there and the conclusions each drew in terms of policy tools to defend those interests in Vietnam. Finally, he assesses what the future vital interests of the United States are likely to be in light of the shifting balance of world power, and the growing importance of international economics.

The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise

The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise PDF Author: Mira Wilkins
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Book Description
Today the multinational corporation is an important economic institution. Most of the major American corporations do not confine themselves to domestic operations but participate widely in business beyond the national frontiers, having direct investments beyond the national frontiers, having direct investments in many countries. Through the multinational corporation, men, capital, goods, management methods, technology, marketing techniques, and general skills crossover national boundaries. The American multinational corporation has influence on the United States and on foreign economies.

National Interest and Foreign Aid

National Interest and Foreign Aid PDF Author: Steven W. Hook
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781685852702
Category : POLITICAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A comparative evaluation of the varying foreign policy roles served by the development assistance programs of France, Japan, Sweden, and the United States.