In The Name Of God: The Christian Right And American Foreign Policy

The Christian Right has been playing a big role in American political and sociallife, including foreign affairs. With George W. Bush, a born-again Christian, electedPresident of the US, and the so-called neoconservatives taking important positions aspolicy makers, the Christian Right's role in American foreign policy has becomeincreasingly visible, which has attracted the attention of the media and the academiccircle.This paper makes a study of the effectiveness of Christian Right's lobbying inAmerican foreign policy process, and tries to find out the internal and external factorsthat determine the effectiveness. For this purpose, a comparative study is made oftwo cases — Clinton administration's trade policy toward China, and Bushadministration's policy on Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. The examination andanalysis of the two cases show that the effectiveness of the Christian Right in foreignpolicy making varies from issue to issue and that it depends on mainly four factors:(1) unity and coherence of the Christian Right;(2) strength of its opponents;(3)ideological conformity with the policy makers;and (4) consistency between ChristianRight's political demands and the US national interests.