1397(MGIMO(University), 76, Prosp. Vernadskogo, Moscow 119454, Russian Federation
Abstract. The article deals with the phenomenon of ethnic lobbying in the U.S. foreign policy. The targeted influence on the U.S. foreign policy presents the example of interplay between different levels in world political processes. It needs to be theoretically explained from the world politics standpoint. An interactionist approach seems to be the most effective to achieve this goal. It allows assessing world-scale political consequences of decisions made at intra-state level, namely in the USA. This also provides us with an analytical framework that has a potential for bridging the gap between neoclassical realism and neoliberal approaches to the international relations theory. However, the theoretical investigation requires paying attention to a national rather than international level of analysis. The author argues that lobbying should be explained as a wide-range set of practices in foreign policy decision-promoting advocacy which are partially regulated with legal instruments. Therefore, the institutionalist agenda is applicable for lobbyism studying in general. This approach leads to a number of difficulties in consideration of the phenomenon, blurs key concepts, such as advocacy. In addition, admitting the existence of a shadow area in foreign policy lobbying limits the researchers’ ability to assess the extent of lobbying influence by particular organizations. Finally, the institutional approach presupposes the author’s attention to lobbies themselves, to their role in formation of political actors’ interests. Based on this conclusion, the article covers some mechanisms and resources of ethnic lobbies, assesses their impact in the particular area of the state policy. Lobbying in foreign policy is defined in terms of cutting-off the alternatives unfavorable to certain political actors. Implementation of these actions forces ethnic lobbies to join broad coalitions which are not only increasing their opportunities, but are also imposing certain restrictions. In this context, it seems significant to conceptualize resources of ethnic lobbies, since researchers are often perceive an ability to influence events and the influence itself as synonymous phenomena. Taken as a whole, the issue of influence resources is difficult to ignore in the international relations theory research.
Keywords: ethnic lobbying, foreign policy, resource of ethnic lobbies, lobbyists’ coalitions
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