From the Hamiltonian-Jeffersonian split over English and French policy in the 1790s to the Republican-Democratic clash over Haitian policy in the 1990s, Americans and foreign observers have been troubled - and often exasperated - by the extraordinary influence of US domestic politics on matters of vital national security. Some critics, including Alexis de Tocqueville, concluded that America's democratic system would cripple the effective and efficient conduct of its foreign policy. This historical overview of the subject examines the central role of domestic politics in the shaping and conduct of American foreign policy from the early republic to the end of the Cold War. While accounting for various factors like special interest groups (including agriculture and business), public opinion, the media, elections, party politics and executive-legislative conflicts, the discussion focuses on American presidents and the bureaucrats who fashion and carry out foreign policy. Their task is a formidable one, it is argued, especially when the legitimate need to conduct some policies in secret clashes with the duty to be accountable to the American people.
The book gives particular attention to the events of the 20th century, when the USA became a major power and then a superpower. Here it explores the role of Jewish-American and other ethnic lobbies, anticommunism and the beginning of the Cold War, party politics and the Cuban missile crisis, the tumultuous debate over Vietnam, confrontations between President Reagan and Congress, and the emerging neoisolationist mood after the Cold War. With many anecdotes to illustrate important themes, the book offers insights into the problems of conducting a democratic foreign policy in the post-Cold War era.