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.
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.
