Marketing the Diasporic Creed

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-330
Author(s):  
Sheila L. Croucher ◽  
Patrick J. Haney

Beginning on Thanksgiving Day 1999, and for many months to follow, the impact of diaspora groups on US international and domestic politics became strikingly clear when Elian Gonzalez’s mother drowned, along with ten other Cuban refugees, while trying to reach South Florida’s shores. Six-year-old Elian survived and reached the US, but only to suffer another torrent, once in the US, of lawsuits, custody battles, and a shameless political tug of war. Cubans on the island demanded that the boy be sent back to his father, who was still living in Cuba and pleading for the return of his son. Cuban Americans in Miami, including relatives of Elian, refused to return the boy to the “Communist tyranny” his mother had died trying to escape. This battle over one little boy’s fate is just the most recent episode in a case that has, for over thirty years, illustrated the dedication (in this case antagonistic) that diasporas can maintain toward a homeland, the energy they can and will expend to influence US foreign policy toward that homeland, and the profound as well as profoundly complex implications of diaspora identity and mobilization for US politics and the US political system.

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Busby ◽  
Craig Kafura ◽  
Jonathan Monten ◽  
Jordan Tama

AbstractInternational relations scholars have found that multilateral approval increases public support for the use of military force and have developed competing explanations for this phenomenon. However, this literature has given little attention to the attitudes of individuals who participate directly in the foreign policy process or shape foreign policy debates. In this research note, we administer a survey experiment to both a cross-section of US foreign policy elites and a nationally representative sample of the US public. We find that US foreign policy elites are more responsive to multilateral approval than the US public, with elites with direct foreign policy decision-making experience valuing it especially highly. These findings point to the importance of considering differences between elites and the public when investigating or theorizing about the impact of multilateral cooperation on domestic politics.


2006 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-491
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Joksimovic

In searching for various opportunities to act in pursuing its foreign policy and endeavors to achieve a dominant role in the global processes USA has developed a broad range of instruments including a financial assistance as a way to be given support for its positions, intelligence activities, its public diplomacy, unilateral implementation of sanctions and even military interventions. The paper devotes special attention to one of these instruments - sanctions, which USA implemented in the last decade of the 20th century more than ever before. The author explores the forms and mechanisms for implementation of sanctions, the impact and effects they produce on the countries they are directed against, but also on the third parties or the countries that have been involved in the process by concurrence of events and finally on USA as the very initiator of imposing them.


2005 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inderjeet Parmar

AbstractThe American aggression in Iraq and the campaign in Afghanistan resulted from the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. 9/11 has had a massive, catalysing effect on the American public, press, main political parties and official foreign policy makers. This article assesses the impact of 9/11 in changing US foreign policy and especially in creating a new foreign policy establishment by comparing it to the consequences of an historical military attack on the United States – Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. It concludes that there is adequate evidence to suggest that a new bipartisan foreign policy consensus/establishment has emerged.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Fabbrini ◽  
Amr Yossef

The existing literature explains the wavering course of President Barack Obama's policy on the 2001–03 Egyptian crisis as attributed to either his personal characteristics (lack of an international experience, predisposition to sermonize rather than to strategize) or to the impact of the decline of the United States as a global superpower (inability to influence foreign actors and contexts). Although both explanations are worthy of consideration, this article seeks to demonstrate that they are insufficient when accounting for the uncertainties shown by the United States during the Egyptian crisis. Domestic factors, particularly the internally divided US political elite and a foreign policy team with different views, played a crucial intervening role in defining the features of US foreign policy. It was domestic politics that made the Obama administration ineffective in dealing with the new scenario that emerged in the Middle East and in Egypt in particular.


2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNA PITCHFORD

For many years opposition to US foreign policy has frequently been interpreted by cultural commentators and the wider media as “anti-Americanism.” Such “anti-Americanism” has been situated as dangerous, irrational and violent, and this apparent link has been reinforced continuously since 9/11. However, by making a reading of two Iraqi weblogs which have gained significant recognition in Iraq and the West, this article challenges such a simplified definition of alternative perspectives on foreign policy as “anti-Americanism.” This article focusses on the blog entries of two Iraqis, Salam Pax and “Riverbend,” who lived in Baghdad throughout the Iraq War (2003–9) and during the subsequent years of civil unrest. It explores how their online responses to the US action in Iraq illustrate the complexity of perceived “anti-Americanism.” The bloggers do not situate themselves as “anti-American.” Instead they draw a clear distinction between opposition to US foreign policy and hostility towards America and its people, thus problematizing previous definitions of “anti-Americanism.” However, this article also recognizes that whilst these texts highlight this distinction, the negative impact of US foreign policy on Iraq since the occupation, coupled with the militarized image that America projects of itself, has caused the distinction between a disapproval of US foreign policy and an objection to US culture in broader terms to become increasingly blurred. Indeed, these narratives indicate that rather than situating 9/11 as the first move in a campaign of “anti-Americanism,” it could be argued that it is the American government's reaction to the attacks, and the impact of the subsequent occupation of Iraq, which acted as a catalyst for the growth of opposition to US foreign policy, and to some extent a rejection of US culture, in Iraq.


2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-281
Author(s):  
Tomas Janeliūnas ◽  
Linas Kojala

This article analyzes the impact of external factors on Russia’s foreign policy. Specifically, it identifies patterns in Russia’s foreign policy reactions to two kinds of developments: changes in US foreign policy, and fluctuating global oil prices affecting Russia’s economy. Our hypothesis is that US foreign policy, as it is perceived by Putin’s regime, is the key determinant of the Kremlin’s reactions, while the changes in economic trends, affected by oil price, influence the regime’s preference to choose more confrontational or more defensive ways of action. As the analysis shows, different versions of national identity narratives can be constructed within Putin’s regime: it acts as a closed political system that can produce different foreign policy reactions and even ideological narratives without major changes in the governing elite.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 77-98
Author(s):  
O. I. Rebro

The development of the US foreign policy tools in the 20th century resulted in sanctions becoming one of the most convenient means for achieving administration’s goals on the international arena, as well as a useful tool in domestic politics. Institutionally established within the scope of the executive branch, buttressed by the US dominance in the world economy and viewed as a “humane” way of influencing foreign elites, it does not demand significant political capital and, as a result, can be implemented without deep strategic thinking. Current US policy towards Russia is constrained by the framework of the sanctions regime, created by Barak Obama Administration in 2014. This regime is inherently inert and is likely to determine the scope and methods of the US policy towards Russia for the foreseeable future regardless of the priorities of the country’s leadership. This article seeks to study the creation of the regime and explain the logic of decision-making process regarding this issue. Utilizing the approach of Francesco Giumelli, who developed a system of factors to explain the logic of a sanctions policy, the author shows that the US sanction policy towards Russia was framed by the desire to demonstrate the ability to mobilize international community and reaffirm its commitments to the security of the Eastern Europe. Low profile of the Ukraine issue on the US foreign policy agenda as well as low political cost of the escalation towards Russia resulted in sanctions becoming a substitute for a foreign policy strategy and were not accompanied by the analysis of the situation, determination of goals and the parameters for evaluating the success of the policy. The deficiency of such an approach is accentuated by the comparison with the European Union who paid a higher price for its sanctions and, despite a popular in Russia notion of a unified “West”, not only resisted the will of the US, but acted as a deterrent for its actions.


This book explores the relationship between American presidential elections and US foreign policy. It argues that analysis of this relationship is currently underdeveloped (indeed, largely ignored) in the academic literature and among historians in particular and is part of a broader negligence of the influence of US politics and the public on foreign policy. It is usually taken as being axiomatic that domestic factors, especially the economy, are the most influential when people enter the voting booth. This may often be the case, but foreign policy undoubtedly also plays an important part for some people, and, crucially, it is seen to do so by presidential candidates and their advisers. Therefore, while foreign policy issues influence some voters in the way they choose to vote, the perception that voters care about certain foreign policy issues can also have a profound effect on the way in which presidents craft their foreign policies. Although we agree with those scholars who argue that it is difficult to discern the impact of domestic politics on foreign policy making, this complex relationship is one that, we feel, requires further exploration. This collection therefore seeks to understand the relative importance of US foreign policy on domestic elections and electoral positions and the impact of electoral issues on the formation of foreign policy.


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