| In recent years there has been an increased interest among scholars of U.S. foreign policy in the topic of culture and foreign policy. Scholars have begun to look for ways that American culture influences the content of U.S. foreign policy. The problem with much of this work is that the authors simply highlight certain strands of American culture, isolate certain patterns of U.S. foreign policy behavior, and then assert that there is a connection.;The purpose of the present study is to establish the behavioral and policy relevance of certain elements of American culture by examining the cultural shaping of three important cold warriors. This is accomplished by conducting in-depth biographical investigations of John Foster Dulles, Averell Harriman, and Robert McNamara, and by testing two models of the cultural shaping process in the case studies. By examining the early biography, worldviews, self conceptions, role conceptions, policy preferences and policy-making behavior of each statesman, the study provides significant evidence to suggest the behavioral and policy relevance of two types of symbolic structure in American culture: myths and representative characters.;After conducting a cultural-historical analysis of three myths (the city on the hill, the market, and the pragmatic myths) and three representative characters (the puritan, the entrepreneur, and the manager characters), the study provides significant evidence in the individual case studies to suggest that the policy preferences and policy-making behavior of each of these three statesmen were influenced by at least one of these symbolic structures. Thus the cultural shaping models tested in the study provide a useful heuristic for understanding precisely how societal level symbolic structures influence individual policy-makers and U.S. foreign policy. |
