Today I’m just asking a question I’ve been thinking about lately. I’ll probably post on it eventually, but I’d love to hear your opinions. (It turns out ya’ll have been terribly insightful so far.) Can normal, everyday Joe’s participate in foreign policy? Since college, my only two “real” jobs have been as a researcher in an IR library and, now, as a diplomat. I remember feeling impotent both studying international studies in college and researching it in the library. So, I’d love your answers to some questions:
- Do you think there are ways built in to our system to allow regular American citizens to participate in some way in our foreign affairs?
- If you think people can, how would you do it?
- Have you ever done anything that you feel made a difference, however small?
- If people can’t participate, what could be changed to allow it?
- Should people be able to participate? I mean, should we strive to insulate foreign policy from democracy?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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If this discussion is open to Europeans, I would say, that Americans are not interested in foreign policy mostly. So, it will be hard to think about ways of their participation… It is not different in Europe, I think. I would compare it to the lack of interest in “european union agenda”, in most parts of EU member states.
Well, I may sound like a lawyer, but it depends on your definition of “participate” and “everyday Joes.” Since the government and State Dept already often look for people with diverse backgrounds (ie, not just foreign policy minds, but people with experience in security, business, management, IT, etc) one can say that a broad cross section of Americans can and do already participate. However, if you narrow it to real foreign policy decision-making, keep it to people with some passion for, knowledge of and experience in foreign countries. I will forever remember the scientific polling data showing that as long as 3-4 years after the start of the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans still believed Saddam was behind 9/11. This AFTER the administration has been publicly saying the opposite for several months. Do we want these type of people touching foreign affairs with anything less than a ten-foot pole? If these people want to “participate,” let them express their opinion in the voting booth.
As for smaller acts, I recommend people give election observation a try. I went with an NGO to observe elections in an East European country (and I spoke the native language), and loved/appreciated every minute of it. Hard work indeed, but you make a difference and most of the locals were extremely grateful and excited to see foreigners come to their city and show interest.
As much as I love Americans and America, the fact that they express their views on foreign policy in the voting booth is sufficiently participatory. Anything beyond that would bring to the forefront the willful ignorance of the outside world and jingoism that are ingrained in our culture.
And besides, as Mark points out, those Americans who are interested in foreign policy already have plenty of avenues available to them.
*Once upon a time, “regular” American citizens did shaped United States foriegn policy. Heck, the founding of our nation is a history of citizen based initaives- Early America was a nation of smugglers, boycotters, pamphleteers, orators, citizen soldiers and lawmakers.
Earlier this year I read both Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America and Daniel Walker Howe’s What God Hath Wrought and came away amazed at the civic interest and general knowledge held by Americans in the antebellum period. Tocqueville notes that every log cabin had a newspaper delivered to it, and that every man (and half the women) belonged to a political or civic society. Likewise, Howe describes the great political and theological debates attended by hundreds, the multiple newspapers that contained full transcriptions of congressional debates, and the flowery petitions signed -and even more importantly, understood- by thousands of Americans across the nation.
I am not entirely sure what changed. What I do know is that there was a time when your average New Yorker would eagerly pick up his newspaper and read Federalist No. 78 or Webster’s second reply to Haynes, when mothers in sod huts would sit their children down and read them Macbeth, and when voter turnout was over 80%.
This time is no longer. Americans do not feel as if their laws and institutions belong to them, failing to see any practical utility in dealing with their government past applying for food stamps.
Americans do not spend effort trying to learn or understand the peoples and places of their world, more engaged with tabloids and pundits than the substance of events in faraway lands.
And perhaps most importantly, Americans do not feel any sense of responsibility for the world as a whole, content to rail against the actions of the ruling elite.
In order to democratize American foreign policy, you need to redemocratize American policy. And that will only happen when the culture of the American people radically transforms, rejecting its current state of apathy, ignorance, and entitlement.
So the real question should be: how do you achieve this?
In response to Tgeer I must say that I agree in part your thoughts. America at one time appeared much more politically and socially aware. But after a recent discussion with friends we brought up the following points.
1.Time is the largest factor.
We have all read or heard letters written by soldiers during the civil war. They are eloquent and beautifully worded for someone we would consider an uneducated grunt from the farm. Our letters/emails of today pale in comparison but think of it this way. That civil war soldier only got one chance to send a letter every now and then. If you had a week to write a letter I bet you would make it sound as amazing as well. In today’s age of I can send an email in 10 seconds, and so we forget the value of communication. We dumb our letters down with poor English and half thoughts because we can send them instantly and as many as needed. I think if people were only given limited opportunity to communicate they would do it much more effectively, but the public at large feels no need.
2. As for the general education of Americans it again comes right down to time constraints and limited resources. Even 50 years ago the availability of knowledge and entertainment pails in comparison to today. People don’t have the time to be knowledgeable about everything; most people have just enough time to be good at their jobs so that they can stay competitive. Way back when politics was one of the only and most easily available sources of entertainment. So that’s what people read about. If they had US weekly they would have read that instead, but they didn’t. Lets be honest the bulk of Politics is no where near as entertaining as this weekends blockbuster movie. People have found new things to entertain them. The days of sitting around reading Macbeth to your children are gone. Why? Simply put…because people don’t have to anymore. This might be considered a bad thing, but it is what it is.
As for general American’s effect on foreign policy, I don’t think enough credit is given to your average go. Aside from their voting power, ever American is Representative of their country.
If an American travels to another country their actions will shape other people view of the country. I hate it when I travel and you occasional hear people generalize American’s based on one bad experience. As an individual we can do a lot to shape our country’s image and image is as important as substance. Sad but true.
Also I think we often overlook what I consider to be America’s biggest export. Culture. The Film, and Television industry sends our media all through out the world, but it is American’s who decide what will be made. American’ ticket sales are the deciding factor in most projects budgets and this is often our voice to the world. Sure someone in another country will maybe watch the president speak now and then, but I bet they have watched ten times as much other American media.
“Time is the largest factor…“
This explains the modern man’s love of brevity and disdain for evidence, but your point has little relation to the three faults I attribute to the Modern American- an apathy towards his own laws and institutions, a complete lack of interest in educating himself about issues of importance, and a failure to take responsibility for the action s of those who represent him.
“as for the general education of Americans it again comes right down to time constraints and limited resources… “
“Way back when” Americans had days that were just as busy as ours; I will not hesitate to say that the life of a rural farmer circa 1800 was more demanding (both physically and mentally) than that of the average office worker today. A busy schedule is hardly an adequate excuse to shrug the duties of citizenship.
Neither does the rise of tabloids account for the abandonment of harder reading material. Remember that the 1800s had its fair share of penny dailies and pamphlet pornography. Yet while this cheap sort of entertainment was easy to be found, it was not omnipresent as in modern America. Furthermore, the Early Republican attitude towards politics was defined by more than just a search for entertainment- county clerks were monitored as closely as Presidents despite the fact that the former dealt with much less drama than the latter. I would propose (as would Tocqueville) that the reason for this interest is because these early Americans felt a close connection with their laws and elected representatives- they truly felt that every edict and resolution belonged to them and acted accordingly.
Tabloids alone cannot be the source for the abandonment of these republican attitudes.
Coming very late to the discussion, I nevertheless feel compelled to respond to T. Greer, particularly his glowing description of the good old days when voter turnout was over 80 percent.
A majority of Americans at that time were not even part of the “electorate” - it’s a false comparison that you’re making. You say that now “Americans do not feel as if their laws and institutions belong to them,” but I suspect that women, slaves and immigrants felt much the same way in the 1800s, if not more so.
Back to the question: I’m all for encouraging civic engagement, but at the end of the day the people who make the effort to influence foreign policy - through domestic activism, academia, volunteering, public service, and so on - are the same people who make the effort to educate themselves about issues and methods.
I think that ordinary Americans can play an active role (beyond voting) through what I like to call “citizen diplomacy” - interacting with foreigners online, while traveling, etc., to breed the kind of mutual understanding and trust that is so important when the higher-ups are conducting foreign policy. I brought an Iranian girl to a Democrats Abroad inauguration party in Istanbul…. it’s minor, but it’s diplomacy just as much as is the consulate’s PD section hosting such an event.
Allison-
I do not think the point you brought up refutes my case. While minorities were disenfranchised from the voting system, this is irrelevant to the issue at hand- the level of civic participation among those charged with operating the levers of the state. In the case of antebellum America, this responsibility was reserved almost solely to white men. While this electorate was not as inclusive as the one that exists in the America of today, it was both more informed of and engaged with political processes than our current electorate happens to be.