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.
""In this well-researched and highly-readable work,
Professor Davidson has drawn from a wide variety of historical sources
and examples to demonstrate how a vast network of private interests,
mostly tied to larger corporate structures, has succeeded in hijacking
U. S. foreign and military policy to the detriment of any rational
public agenda. This tragic state of affairs has been made possible,
Davidson argues, because public apathy regarding global issues has
been steadily increasing. Foreign Policy, Inc. is strongly recommended
reading for scholars, politicians, journalists, and others interested
in the American role in world politics today." -- Carl Boggs,
author of Imperial Delusions andco-author of The Hollywood War
Machine." -- Carl Boggs
Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester
University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic
Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official
Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.
