An Analysis On The Change Of Interest Groups Politics And The Transformation Of The American Hegemony

In recent years, with the change in the political climate of home and abroad, great changes, which effect profoundly on the US foreign policy, have taken place in the US interest groups politics. In order to explain the inner logic of the US hegemony, the reason for its change and the result brought by the change, it is important for us to analyze the political change of the US interest group after the cold war.This thesis tries to analyze the interaction between the interest groups politics and the US hegemony. The decision-making procedure of US foreign policy is completed in its political market, which provides constitutional conditions for the participation of interest group in the US foreign policy. Moreover, it is an advantage, rather than a disadvantage for the United States to maintain the so-called democracy in foreign affairs through interest groups. In fact, it is the political market, group politics, and democratic diplomacy that preserve and maintain the US national benefit to the widest extent. Through the interaction of democracy and diplomacy, the United States strides forward to strength and hegemony. In recent years, great change has taken place in the US political interest groups, the reasons vary differently: On the one hand, there are external causes brought by the end of the cold war, such as the reducing exterior pressure, the disintegration of the agreement for cold war among interest groups, the increasing contact between American interior politic issues and international affairs resulted from the extension of globalization. On the other hand, interior causes also count, for instance, the institutional change of the government, the upgrading position of the US Congress in foreign affairs, the worsening polarization of the American society, the increasing number of US citizens who take part in political issue through joining interest groups rather than making vote. All these factors lead the US interest groups to the emerging outcome such as the unprecedented development in terms of amount, scale and influence, the widening difference between one another, the increasing power of the right-wing groups, the relative advantage of multi-national groups, and the imbalance among the groups. The most outstanding outcome of the political change in terms of foreign policy is its direct impact on the mode of American hegemony, which brings new engine for the extension of American hegemony. Under the driving force of political change of its interest groups, the American hegemony has transformed gradually from the controlled "democratic hegemony" to a "supranational hegemony", which pursues the absolute security and capital extension. This change has brought fundamental impact on the American democratic political affairs and the validity of the American hegemony as well as the world order.Based on the discussion above, this paper holds that the American national political issue is the key element for understanding the logic of the US hegemony. The current American hegemony mode is the product of the imbalance in political development of both American and world community. The hegemony which built on this foundation indicates more uncertainty of the world.The innovation of this paper lies in the following aspects: Firstly, this paper has innovatively provided an overview of the relationship between the internal interest groups in the US and the US foreign policy, which has not only, from the perspective of foreign relations, interpreted the influence and function of the US interest groups, but also, from the angle of internal politics, discerned the cause of the US foreign policy. However, the literature of home and abroad related to the interest group politics in the United States mostly disserted the issue from the angle of internal politics, which lacks the systematic dissertation on the influence of the interest groups on the diplomacy of the US, especially on the new influence after the contemporary changes of these interest groups. Secondly, this paper has probed into a new theoretic field. In the past, the study of American hegemony was mostly viewed from geopolitical perspectives, which regarded America as a whole. However, the expansion of American hegemony was in fact mostly motivated by its internal political and economic need. Therefore, by interpreting the American hegemony from the viewpoint of the interest group politics, this paper has originated a new concept. Thirdly, this paper has categorized the interest groups from the angle of foreign relations, which is the pioneer of the related research field. Meanwhile, the paper provided the detailed generalization of the relations among the multi-national corporations, commerce and financial groups. The author also put forward a series of initiative judgments (for instance knowledge hegemony) on the form of American hegemony.This paper has, from the angle of international relations, analyzed the American interest groups by applying the theories such as The Theory of Realism, The Theory of Public Choice and so on. The Theory of Public Choice has also been applied in the paper to analyze, from the medium and micro perspectives, the interest groups and to introduce the notion of "political market". As for the research method, this paper has applied ways of historical research and empirical research. To some extent, methods of sociology, such as statistics, document analyzing have also been used in the study to interpret the influence of the change of social interest structure on the transition of American hegemony. Besides, case study can also be found in the paper. For instance, the author quoted the American chamber of commerce as an example to interpret the process of how a interest group transformed from an American interest group to a global interest group. By this case study, the author also explored the role of the individual interest groups in the course of the transition of American hegemony, how this self-identity of the interest group influenced the concepts of American national interest and the American hegemony and how this self-identity and the interaction of behaviorists finally shaped the new international political power system.