"american-style" Democracy And Its Impact On U.s. Foreign Policy Making,

U.S.A. first practiced the western type constitutional government democratic system, with its American—type democracy as a western democracy model. So far,American—type democracy is relatively advanced and fine. U.S.A. considers it vital national interest to maintain the democratic system and promote democracy worldwide, which serves as an means for U.S.A. in dominating the global.In Part One,the unique conditions and characteristics of American- type democracy are introduced under which American democracy has developed. Different traditions, natural conditions, and political culture faiths have lead to distinguished from other political systems.In Part Two, the key part of this paper, the author discusses respectively the factors in American-type democracy that influence American diplomatic decision-making and the effectiveness of American-type democracy to the diplomatic decision-making. Firstly the author discusses the factors in American-type democracy that influence American diplomatic decision-making: separation of powers between President and Congress, separation of powers between federation and the states, participation in decision-making of the interest groups, think tanks, political parties, popular media, public opinion and etc. Under the democratic system of separation of powers, Congress and president, who play a significant role in diplomatic decision-making and share authority of U.S.A. diplomatic decision-making powers. There are a lot of interest groups in U.S.A., as important channels through which citizens participate in government affairs, and their functions can't be ignored. Think tanks, popular media, public opinion all play role in the diplomatic decision-making.Secondly, the author discusses the effectiveness of American-type democracy to the diplomatic decision-making. The American democratic system has both positive and negative impacts on the diplomatic decision-making. On one hand it makes the foreign policy legitimate, better represent. On the other hand, it causes low efficiency, and sometimes results in shortsightedness, failing to consider overall and the long-term national interest. American diplomacy scholar Mead's once pointed out that,"The traditional viewpoint believed, the democratic society is not in harmony with the success of the foreign policy. Just the opposite, the American diplomacy process prove that it takes root in particular democratic society, since it is overall beneficial."Two typical cases have been selected to prove how each factor of"American-type"democracy play the role in the foreign policy formulation process in the third part. In the Vietnam war decision-making process, the increase and decrease of authority between president and Congress, the wide spread report of the popular media, the change of public opinion, and transformation of groups for their own benefit, all these contributed to the termination of Vietnam war. In the"PNTR"decision-making of U.S.A. to China, Congress plays a vital role. In this process, president in order to enable"PNTR"to pass Congress, president used the media, public opinion.Tocqueville thought that,"The foreign policy nearly does not need every democratic inherent nature;On the contrary it requests fully to utilize the thing which the democratic system lacks". Many scholars questioned the multiplication in the American diplomacy decision-making, and thought this does not tally with the diplomatic characteristics, but the reality proved that diplomacy of U.S.A. has actually obtained the significant achievement. Three paradoxes about the democracy and the diplomatic decision-making have been discussed in the last part of this paper: the citizen political freedom and the national security policies;democracy control of using military force and security policy militarization;economic interest expression pluralism and foreign economic policy-making.U.S.A. has a deep origin of democracy, in a sense democracy has brought about success to U.S.A. U.S.A. formulates its foreign policy in democratic way, and in the implementation process of foreign policy, the democracy serves as its powerful means.