How do states know what they want? Asking how interests are defined and how changes in them are accommodated, Martha Finnemore shows the fruitfulness of a constructivist approach to international politics. She draws on insights from sociological institutionalism to develop a systemic approach to state interests and state behavior by investigating an international structure not of power but of meaning and social value. An understanding of what states want, she argues, requires insight into the international social structure of which they are a part. States are embedded in dense networks of transnational and international social relations that shape their perceptions and their preferences in consistent ways. Finnemore focuses on international organizations as one important component of social structure and investigates the ways in which they redefine state preferences. She details three examples in different issue areas. In state structure, she discusses UNESCO and the changing international organization of science. In security, she analyzes the role of the Red Cross and the acceptance of the Geneva Convention rules of war. Finally, she focuses on the World Bank and explores the changing definitions of development in the Third World. Each case shows how international organizations socialize states to accept new political goals and new social values in ways that have lasting impact on the conduct of war, the workings of the international political economy, and the structure of states themselves.

Most Americans assume that U.S. foreign policy is determined by democratically elected leaders who define and protect the common good of the citizens and the nation they represent. Increasingly, this conventional wisdom falls short of explaining the real climate in Washington. Well organized private-interest groups are capitalizing on Americans' ignorance of world politics to advance their own agendas. Supported by vast economic resources and powerful lobbyists, these groups thwart the constitutional checks and balances designed to protect the U.S. political system, effectively bullying or buying our national leaders. Lawrence Davidson traces the history, evolution, and growing influence of these private organizations from the nation's founding to the present, and he illuminates their profoundly disturbing impact on the direction of U.S. foreign policy. Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing America's National Interest demonstrates how economic interest groups once drove America's westward expansion and designed the nation's overseas imperial policies. Using the contemporary Cuba and Israel lobbies as examples, Davidson then describes the emergence of political lobbies in the twentieth century and shows how diverse groups with competing ethnic and religious agendas began to organize and shape American priorities abroad. Despite the troubling influence of these specialized lobbies, many Americans remain indifferent to the hijacking of American foreign policy. Americans' focus on local events and their lack of interest in international affairs renders them susceptible to media manipulation and prevents them from holding elected officials accountable for their ties to lobbies. Such mass indifference magnifies the power of these wealthy special interest groups and permits them to create and implement American foreign policy. The result is that the global authority of the United States is weakened, its integrity as an international leader is compromised, and its citizens are endangered. Debilitated by two wars, a tarnished global reputation, and a plummeting economy, Americans, Davidson insists, can no longer afford to ignore the realities of world politics. On its current path, he predicts, America will cease to be a commonwealth of individuals but instead will become an amoral assembly of competing interest groups whose policies and priorities place the welfare of the nation and its citizens in peril.

Introduction : historical memory in German foreign policy -- has Germany crossed the Rubicon? : the case of NATO and Kosovo -- A trajectory of change? : the case of Afghanistan -- Defender of peace and of the United Nations: the case of Iraq -- Germany's future in Europe and beyond.

Although the term national interest has long been used in reference to the foreign policy goals of nations, there has been no generally agreed upon definition of the concept; as a result, Donald E. Nuechterlein contends, there has been a tendency for foreign policy to be determined by institutional prejudice and past policy rather than by a systematic assessment of national interests. By what criterion does a President decide that a given interest is or is not vital-that is, whether he must contemplate defending it by force if other measures fail? In this study Nuechterlein offers a new conceptual framework for the analysis of foreign policy decisions; resting on more precise definitions and distinguishing among the degrees of interest that the United States perceives in the range of foreign policy issues it faces. He also deals with the constitutional problem of checks and balances between the Presidency and Congress in setting the goals of foreign policy, and the influence of private interest groups and the media on the definition of national interest. Underlining the need for constant reassessment of priorities in a rapidly changing international environment, Nuechterlein illustrates his analysis by drawing on the American experience in foreign affairs since World War II. A case study of the American involvement in Southeast Asia describes how six presidents, beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, viewed United States interests there and the conclusions each drew in terms of policy tools to defend those interests in Vietnam. Finally, he assesses what the future vital interests of the United States are likely to be in light of the shifting balance of world power, and the growing importance of international economics.

The book's basic analytic assumption is that there is a distinction between state and society. "Defending the National Interest" shows that the problem for political analysis is how to identify the underlying social structure and the political mechanisms through which particular societal groups determine the government's behavior.

The concept of national interest belongs among the most widely used and abused concepts in the foreign policy debate. This volume illustrates how the term can be used as a meaningful analytical tool. It introduces three criteria (relevance, domestic consensus, and external acceptance) which serve to identify national interest. The authors apply these criteria to Czech foreign policy making and provide some interesting findings concerning a country's possibilities to define and pursue its national interest. Since the authors use four different methodologies (case studies, discourse analysis, grounded theory, and ethnography), the volume also shows the variety of possible ways to analyse national interests.