Sunday, June 15, 2008

Who influences foreign policy in U.S.? It is a debatable issue that what the role of presidency in foreign policy is? Many commentators might have different answers to this question: Do presidents act as chief architects or general contractors when they formulate foreign policy? The answers of these commentators to this question depend on who and when they talk about. For instance, do they talk about the post-Cold War era or the post-September 11th era? Do they talk about Eisenhower and Reagan or William J. Clinton and George W. Bush? Jacobs and I. Page in their article believe that many actors influence U.S. foreign policy such as experts, “epistemic communities”, organized interests (especially business and labor), and ordinary citizens or “public opinion”. But they focus on business leaders, and argue that they run American foreign policy. I think over long periods, the involvement of the public in planning or implementation of foreign policy has been quite marginal. The United States is a business-run society. The political parties and power have reflected business interests for a long time. One version of this view that has a lot of power behind it is that the foreign policy is controlled by coalitions of investors who join together around some common interest. Some neoliberal analysts argue that business corporations exert specific influence on foreign policy of United States. These influences are causes of the business corporations’ effects on the economy and their ability to provoke American electorates to punish the incumbent political party. The fast domestic movement of capital that leads to create an open world economy from 1970s has increased pressure on the state to tailor foreign policy to please business. Businesses try to maximize profit, power, market share and control over the state on making foreign policy. If we think inside this paradigm, we conclude that the presidency in the United States toward foreign policy is under dominant of organized interests especially business. So the answer to the first question is that the presidents in the United States do not act as a chief architects but they act as general contractors.

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