Major Influences That Have Shaped Foreign Policy in the USA - Dissertation Example

Major influences that have shaped foreign policy in the USA Introduction Policymaking is a procedure that involves a large number of actors, a series of activities, and various forms of protocol related exercises, which makes it a complex matter. Keeping in mind the fact that US has emerged as a super power in the arena of world politics and international relations after the end of the Great Wars, it is of little wonder that the process of formulating US foreign policies is complex, and with compelling influences from its various domestic agents, pertaining to its social, political, economical, and the “epistemic communities.” While creating a foreign policy, each of these agents expend their own spheres of influence, thus playing a role in shaping the final outcome within the policy making process. Keeping in line with what Robert Divine had once remarked, “From the Revolution to the Cold War, Americans have been willing to fight for their interests, their beliefs, and their ambitions” (Divine, 1965, 172), there are clear evidences which suggest that the American foreign policies after the WWII, have roots in its domestic issues, concerns, and interests. Various researches on the subject of US international relations have distinguished 3 specific factors that appear to exert their influences on the foreign policies of the country, especially after the end of the WWII. These factors include, the stakes of different organised factions comprising mainly of the business and labour groups; the experts in the line of foreign relations; and the common people of US, or the so called “public opinion.” An in-depth study of these various researches revealed that the organised factions of business leaders with a global outlook have exerted the maximum influence on the shaping of US foreign policies (Keohane and Milner, 1996), followed by the ‘epistemic groups,’ that are specifically business oriented (Haas, 1992); while the labour groups have little, yet significant influence (Galenson, 1986), on shaping of the policies. The public opinion (Sobel, 2001) plays the minimum role, except under certain conditions, in the shaping of the foreign policies of US. This article will examine the various factors that help to shape the US foreign policies, in order to derive that the factors of the organised groups of various business houses hold the maximum sway over US foreign policies. Discussion The official goals of US foreign policies as stated by the government, are "to create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community" (US department of state and U.S. Agency for International Development, 2007). While examining the factors that work towards achieving these goals, the first potent question that arises in one’s mind is the fundamental query as to “who governs?”(Dahl, 1961) This question has been the subject of many studies, related to American politics, and has given rise to many debates within the realms of international relations. The question in the arena of international relations relates to the general attributes of the so called ‘domestic roots’ that help to shape US foreign policies; the democratic aspects in the behaviour of US towards other countries, globally; and whether its national concerns and interests aid in shaping its foreign policies. By seeking an answer to the basic question as to which of these factors actually influence the US government officials the most, would help the reader to understand the determinants of the country’s foreign policies. In this context, we will first examine the 3 main factors considered to have a strong influence in the shaping of US foreign policies. Theories on the nature of the influence of public opinion: Median voter theory contends that the voter preferences for any government policy have a strong influence on the state officials, as these preferences often turn out to be the deciding factor during the electoral results. Various researches and the subsequent empirical evidences from these studies have shown signs of a strong public influence on the shaping of foreign policies (Hartley and Russett, 1992; Sobel, 2001). Quantitative analyses by Page and Shapiro in 1983, have shown that as many as 62 % of U.S. foreign policies have changed as per the public preferences (182); while Monroe in 1998 showed in his studies that that public support for increased military funds, from the various districts, were the real reason behind the Congress support for the military spending bills under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989). This growing number of evidences of strong influence of public support in shaping US foreign and defence strategies, and international relations (Putnam, 1988, 432-436), was aptly summed by Nincic when he commented that all US foreign policies and defence strategies were “tethered to domestic electoral calculations,” especially during the time of the elections (1990, 395). Research works on the nature of democratic governments and policy framing have shown that as per the theory of ‘democratic peace,’ a democratic country has a wider perspective than an authoritarian state, and tends to take into account public opinion when shaping the various state policies (Russett & Oneal, 2001). Within the theory of ‘democratic peace’ another line of thought reveals that the nature of elections where candidates compete with each other “makes democratic leaders… sensitive to public opinion...[since] citizens in a democratic state can influence governmental policy directly, through public opinion, or indirectly, though their representatives” (ibid, 274). Opponents of this concept, belonging to the camps of the elitist democrats (Sartori, 1987) and the realists within the arena of international relations (Morgenthau, 1973), discard any such notions. They opined that public participation in the shaping of foreign and international relations would hamper the effective functioning of the entire process, and the foreign policies of any country is bound to suffer if it takes into account widespread public opinion. Realists especially feel that since the common people engage in "simple moralistic and legalistic” thinking, and reflect moods that keep on transforming, as they vie for instant gratifications; characteristics which are far removed from the realms of world politics and international relations (Morgenthau, 1973, 146-148). Walter Lippmann in his papers read out a warning, and advocated against the use of public opinion in making foreign policies as it is a “morbid derangement of the true functions of power, [and] deadly to the very survival of the state as a free society” (1955, 15 -27). Influence of the think-tanks or the experts: Research work on this issue has shown that a growing trend of the US policy makers are seen to be turning towards the experts or the ‘think tanks,’ on various issues, owing to the increasingly growing intricacies and ambiguities, in the nature of the modern global problems. The policy makers have specifically turned for help towards the “networks of knowledge-based experts” in the line of academics, and other experts in the line of technology, in order to comprehend the equitable reasons behind the various global socio-economic, and political problems, the actual benefits that the state could derive from these apparent problems, and the remedial aspects of these problems (Haas, 1992, 12). Peter Haas, in an interview in 1992, had affirmed that the “epistemic community members’ professional training, prestige, and reputation for expertise... accord them [legitimate] access to the political system and... policy debates” during the various sessions of policy making in the legislative and executive branches of the US congress (2-17). Researches on ‘epistemic communities’ have delineated two major incentives in this regards. Firstly, it has been suggested that while taking advice from the various experts, the policy makers can start their own inquiry into the matter and reach to a decision that can be free of any pressures exerted by the public voices, and other organised groups with stakes on that particular issue. Thus, one can assume, by involving the ‘think tanks’ one can disregard to a certain extent the business and labour communities. Researchers have also claimed that the experts may serve as the process for distinguishing the equitable interests of the states that may help in defining the foreign policies of a country and the nature of its international relations (Waltz, 1979). The realists way of thinking are discarded by the believers in the ‘epistemic communities,’ and they contend that the theory of realism wrongly “assume(s) that a state’s interests are clear and that the ways in which its interests may be most efficaciously pursued are equally clear” (Haas, 1992, 13-14). They feel that it is the think-tanks or the experts that are the actual mediums, through which the policy makers can comprehend the intricacies and actual nature of the various global problems, which in turn assists in the process of shaping foreign policies and forging international relations. Summarily, one can conclude that the complex and unstable nature of global politics creates a strong incentive for the foreign policy makers to take into account expert advice, from the various think tanks, and academicians. Influence of the organised communities like various business heads and labour leaders: this line of thinking is generally favoured by the neo-liberalists that favour the theory of dominance of the various organized groups having stakes, as regards certain issues that come within the purview of the foreign policies. Here the neo-liberalists contend that the policy makers face great pressure from the domestic circles that can use their power of labor strikes, ‘member votes,’ donations made during the electoral campaigns, ‘capital flight’ intimidations, and various other allusions to threats of a breakdown in the running political order (Frieden, 1991). In 1996, Keohane and Milner in their papers revealed the connection between various government subsidies and an attitude of ‘protectionism’ in matters of global trade, with the safeguarding of the various organized and moneyed groups. Organized groups of business heads and labour union leaders hold the resources for creating pressure on the foreign policy makers. It has been often seen that in their objective of safeguarding the rights of the poor labour class, the “[trade union] leaders have spoken out often on foreign affairs” (Galenson, 1986, 62). Besides, foreign policies, in US, we find that the trade union leaders have quite often expressed their disapprovals on such matters as, capitalism, wars (especially the Vietnam war and Cold War), military budgets, and US’s anti-communism stance (Lipset, 1986). However, there are various speculations on this issue that theorise that despite its stronghold over the political resources, and in terms of financial donations during elections, the organised labour in US does not play an important role in the area of foreign policy making (Gottschalk, 2001). A majority of the neo-liberalists in the arena of international politics feel that it is mainly the various business houses that strongly influence US foreign policy, as they wield great financial power and have the capacity to lead the voters into overthrowing the ruling political party (Milner, 1997). A number of researches have shown the relation between various business houses and US foreign policies. Trubowitz (1998) contended that a majority of the US economic policies were prepared keeping in mind the economic interests of the domestic business houses; and Grossman and Helpman (1995) in their research papers have revealed links between increased trade tariffs and widespread global commerce, to the pressures from the different powerful business houses that contribute widely during the various US electoral campaigns. These pressures from business organisations have significantly increased in the last few decades with the era of globalisation, and an emergence of a global liberal trade and economy, which are distinguished by the quick global ‘movement of capital’ along with increased levels of stiff economic competition from the global arena (Bates and Lien, 1985). The pressures on the different branches of the executive division of the government, vary according to the perceptivity of that particular division to the vested interests of the big US business houses. Officials working in the line of defence and foreign policies generally aim towards achieving collective gains in relation to “US national interests” and can be considered to be somewhat resistant to pressures from the business houses (Wildavsky, 1991). The most susceptible groups to feel pressure from the organised groups are the Congress members, where their elected candidates come under pressure for receiving monetary benefits during campaigns. From above discourse, it is evident that all the 3 factors have the potential for exerting pressures on the government officials during the shaping of the US foreign policies. In this context, we will now make a close study of the various major foreign policies created by the US government, and the nature of these policies on the international relations of US with other countries, specifically in the years after the end of the WWII in 1945. Nature of US foreign policies after the WWII: US have always maintained multilateralism, in its manner of the foreign policies, in the post WWII era. Multilateralism can be defined as “the coordination of relations among three or more states according to a set of rules or principles...it entails the coordination of relations among a group of states, it can be contrasted with bilateral, “hub and spoke,” and imperial arrangements. [Here] relationship(s) are defined by agreed-upon rules and principles and sometimes by organizations—so multilateralism can be contrasted with interactions based on ad hoc bargaining or straight forward power politics. Multilateralism also entails some reduction in policy autonomy” (Ikenberry, 2003, 534). After the end of the WWII, United States was placed in an extremely powerful position, unprecedented in world history, while the weak, and war-devastated European states, like Britain and France, seeing the new centre of power, moved towards forming multilateral agreements with US, in order to restrain and regulate the U.S. economy and security plans. US went along with these multilateral agreements in order to ensure that “Germany and the rest of Western Europe would be integrated into a wider, American-centred international order” (ibid). The nature and scope of the restraints put on by the European powers on U.S. policies were nominal, while the liberal trade policies and convertible currencies were in the favour of US economic interests. Thus, US primarily supported multilateral foreign relations with the European states, in order to ensure that the latter (especially the western European states) would be firmly under its control, which in turn would help US in furthering its own economic interests. With the East Asian states, however US were less successful in its endeavours, in terms of economic benefits. Here the pacts that took shape were more military in nature, and US realised that multilateral trade policies with these countries would not be as profitable as had been with the European states. “It was neither in the interest of the United States to create institutions that would have constrained independent decision making in Washington nor in the interest of subordinate states to enter into institutions in which they would have minimal control while forgoing opportunities for free-riding and dependence reduction. Extreme hegemony thus led to a system of bilateral relations between states rather than a multilateral system than emerged in the North Atlantic area around the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Community” (Katzenstein, 1997, 37). Thus, we find that the US have always based its foreign policies and have operated in a manner that would benefit its domestic economic interests, while also allow it to hold sway over a particular country’ s domestic matters (its attempts at creating a ‘unipolar’ world, after the fall of USSR at the end of the Cold War). The economic interests of the US state that has been always evident in its foreign policies, implicates the domestic interests of the US business houses. In their research paper Lawrence Jacobs and Benjamin Page (2005) analyses, using four different kinds of statistical models that show how global-oriented business heads have held strong, persistent, and a little asymmetrical influence, on the foreign policy makers of US (mainly on the executive branch of the government and the Congress members), in a majority of the multilateral relations that the country had forged globally after the WWII. In their papers they have further shown that the expert or the think-tanks, also hold a strong sway in the process of shaping of foreign policies of US, though not as strong as the business heads. On further investigations they have shown that the “organized groups – not just independent, objective evaluations of complex international realities – may color the views of experts...[thus suggesting that] direct foreign policy clout of business and labor may be augmented by an indirect influence upon policy makers that works through experts” (119-120). In their papers, Jacobs and Page have shown that labour has little, though of some consequences, on the nature of the foreign policies, while surprisingly public opinion has practically no impact on the making of these policies. Thus, we can derive that the two main factors that have exerted the maximum influence on US foreign policies after the time of the WWII, are the country’s business heads and the ‘experts’ in this line. In the context of the think-tank influence, US had developed a large resource of experts referred to as the ‘epistemic community,’ in the form of the Institute for Government Research, as early as 1927. With the end of WWII, there were significant US involvements in the arena of world political order, and which brought forth the necessity of having a set of foreign policy advisors that would assist the government independently. US, clearly aiming at becoming the leader, in economic terms, and also working towards establishing itself as the head of a world hegemonic power, found it necessary to seek expert advice on its various foreign policies and also on the aspect of its defences, which led to the formation of RAND in 1948, which was expressly formed to safeguard US defence interests in the wake of a nuclear warfare. A look at the US history clearly reveals the influence of the experts on US foreign policies, and this is evident right at the time the end of WWII with the publication of an article by George Kennan, The Sources of Soviet Conduct, where the ‘containment policy’ was first framed, and which was later consistently used by the US (especially against the communist states) till the end of Cold War. Again, we find their increased role in the 1990’s, where they were seen in the role of neutral third party, and this evident in the debate that ensued on the expansion of NATO, which was important to rise over the divisions created by the Cold War’s divide, and form a strong and united Europe, that would remain largely peaceful. The growth of the ‘3rd party’ of influential business heads and think-tanks, on US diplomatic relations, were owing to the fact that US executive and legislative bodies are two separate organisations, where the Congress (legislative body) has a strong presence in American political order, and is also subject to external pressures. Though the executive has been trying to exert its control over the various institutions, related to foreign policies, yet it remains more or less under the control of the Congress, which in turn is controlled by business heads and the ‘epistemic community’s efforts (Gowan, 2008). In the recent times, in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, we now find that American foreign policy is suddenly appearing to have shifted towards a unilateral form, after having staunchly and aggressively followed multilateral relations for the past 60 years. This is evident in the large number of “rejections of pending international agreements and treaties, including the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, the Rome Statute of the Inter- national Criminal Court (ICC), the Germ Weapons Convention, and the Programme of Action on Illicit Trade in Small and Light Arms [and the] Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty” ((Ikenberry, 2003, 533). Under the Bush regime, it had also defied its allies and their warnings, and had gone ahead in declaring war against Iraq and Afghanistan, citing security reasons. Here, Ikenberry provides us with an interesting insight into the whole scenario where he reveals that behind this apparent shift towards unilateralism, there are more complex underlying foreign policies that serve to allow “US more opportunities to act unilaterally, where incentives to do so are actually complex and mixed. And arguably, incentives make a multilateral approach more—not less—desirable for Washington in many areas of foreign policy” (ibid, 534). A look at the rejected treaties show that they are mostly old ones and these may not seem to be so suitable to the US interests any more, in the modern context. Here Ikenberry, comments that “in the past, the United States has embraced multilateral- because it provided ways to protect American freedom of action: escape clauses, weighted voting, and veto rights. The “new unilateralism” is in part a product of the “new multilateralism,” which offers fewer opportunities for the United States to exercise political control over others and fewer ways to escape the binding by the agreed-upon rules and principles” (ibid). Thus, we find that this is not an end to the multilateral foreign policies as had been previously displayed by US right from the times of WWII, and is only a shift in its character and scope, in order to suit its recent needs, better. The two major influences of ‘business heads’ and ‘experts’ controlling the shaping of the foreign policies, also remain the same, and only the tactics and apparent mode of forging international ties have changed. The US aim of establishing a hegemonic world that would be ‘uni-polar’ in nature, with America as the only super power, controlling the political and economic orders of other countries, also remains unchanged, with only a change in it how it represented itself to the world previously. Conclusion From the above discourse, it is evident that the US foreign policies have always aimed at securing its own domestic economic interests. Behind this relentless aim at obtaining economic benefits, were the vested interests of the various domestic business organisations that wanted to expand their horizons, and secure lucrative deals from the global markets. With the advent of the nuclear weapons, came the rise of the so called ‘think-tanks’ in the arena of international relations that gave guidance while shaping the various foreign policies related to defence strategies. In order to establish a hegemonic order where US would rule supreme, the US foreign policies have always been created with heavy influences from the powerful business groups, and to a slightly lesser extent from the ‘epistemic communities.’ References Bates, R., and Da-Hsiang, L. 1985. A Note on Taxation, Development, and Representative Government. Politics and Society, 14, 53-70. Dahl, R., 1961. Who Governs? 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