Exiles and the Marketing of U.S. Policy toward Cuba and Iraq

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of Cuban Americans and Iraqi Americans as allies of like‐minded public officials in the marketing of contested foreign policies to the United States public. Each of these ethnic exile communities played a traditional lobbying role as would be expected of interest groups, but the argument here is that the interactive relationship between the ethnic interest groups and government officials in advocating policy is the more interesting development in these cases. While there are differences in the two cases, the similarities between marketing an embargo and an invasion suggest that foreign‐policy analysts may want to pay closer attention to the interactive relationship between exile communities and government officials in policy advocacy. I suggest in conclusion that we need to be wary of according defectors and exiles privileged positions in future foreign‐policy debates.

Emigration and Democracy

“…Another characteristic on which migrants are not randomly self-selected is ethnicity, with an over-representation of ethnic minorities among emigrants. This tends to recompose the home-country population towards 4 See Eckstein (2009), Vanderbush (1999, 2005), and Vanderbush (2009) on Cuba, and Djuric (2003) or Ragazzi (2009) on Croatia. 5 Similar analyses have been proposed notably in the cases of Lebanon and Sri Lanka.…”

Muslim Interest Groups and Foreign Policy in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom: Identity, Interests, and Action

“…Moreover, Muslim interest groups sometimes acted at the behest of their governments. As Walt Vanderbush () recently emphasized in these pages (see also Haney and Vanderbush ), a reciprocal relationship can develop between foreign policymakers and ethnic interest groups, such that interest groups promote governmental or departmental objectives as well as vice versa . Scholars of interest group politics have put this argument forward more generally, particularly in the more centralized Canadian and British political systems (Pross ; Grant ).…”

“…The participation of ethnic groups in foreign policymaking has largely been studied from the vantage point of their influence on national foreign policy, particularly in the United States (for example, Said ; Ahrari ; Haney and Vanderbush ; Shain ; Smith ; Brenner, Haney and Vanderbush ; Lindsay ; Mearsheimer and Walt ; Kirk ; Rubenzer ; Vanderbush ; Rubenzer and Redd ). A less‐developed discussion about these foreign policy actors has been how they participate in the foreign policy process.…”

Los raizales y la política exterior: una aproximación desde los enfoques étnicos

“…La perspectiva de cabildeo constituye lo étnico a través de una percepción de filiación nacional desplazada de su origen, ya que su preocupación pasa por las diásporas que presionan sobre la política exterior estadounidense que se identifican a través de su vínculo nacional ( , 1999;Mathias, 1981;Rubenzer, 2008;Rubenzer y Reed, 2010;Shain, 1995;Vanderbush, 2009Watanabe, 1984. En el enfoque de cabildeo se produce un debate sobre lo étnico y el "interés nacional" del país receptor, en términos del prejuicio de atender a los intereses étnicos de grupos como los judíos norteamericanos, los cubanos exiliados y los árabes-americanos por encima del interés nacional y su distorsión (Mathias, 1981) o la visión más positiva de la intervención étnica como refuerzo a los ideales de la política exterior estadounidense, tensión que se puede definir en perspectivas aislacionistas e integracionistas (Shain, 1995).…”