Foreign Attachments: The Power of Ethnic Groups in the Making of American Foreign Policy - Hardcover

"Ethnic lobbies, while not new in American politics, have grown in influence since the end of the cold war, says Tony Smith...[Smith] agrees that ethnic groups have a right to organize to promote their values and interests...[but] ethnic groups have an obligation to recognize that national interests may conflict with their preferences...Throughout, Smith urges supporters of multiculturalism in foreign policy to be more Tself-criticalU of how they talk about democratic citizenship." Ethnic lobbies, while not new in American politics, have grown in influence since the end of the cold war, says Tony Smith...[Smith] agrees that ethnic groups have a right to organize to promote their values and interests...[but] ethnic groups have an obligation to recognize that national interests may conflict with their preferences...Throughout, Smith urges supporters of multiculturalism in foreign policy to be more 'self-critical' of how they talk about democratic citizenship.--Nina C. Ayoub "Chronicle of Higher Education "

Who speaks for America in world affairs? In this insightful new book, Tony Smith finds that, often, the answer is interest groups, including ethnic ones. This seems natural in a country defined by ethnic and cultural diversity and a democratic political system. And yet, should not the nation's foreign policy be based on more general interests? On American national interests? In exploring this question, Smith ranges over the history of ethnic group involvement in foreign affairs; he notes the openness of our political system to interest groups; and he investigates the relationship between multiculturalism and US foreign policy. The book has three major propositions. First, ethnic groups play a larger role in the formulation of American foreign policy than is widely recognized. Second, the negative consequences of ethnic group involvement today outweighs the benefits this activism at times confers on America in world affairs. And third, the tensions of a pluralist democracy are particularly apparent in the making of foreign policy, where the self-interested demands of a host of domestic actors raise an enduring problem of democratic citizenship - the need to reconcile general and particular interests.