FOREIGN
POLICY:
NOT
JUST FOR YOU
BUT BY YOU AS WELL Study and Discussion Outline For a Four Part Short Course by Patrick Killough July 11, 18, 25 and August 1, 1993 7:00 p.m. Sundays at First Presbyterian Church Highlands, North Carolina Preface to 2004 Internet Re-Issuing In
1993 when I presented the short course below to a church in Highlands,
North Carolina, a 1 3/4 drive through the mountains from my home in
Swannanoa, I was not comfortable with the internet and had no home
page. Now I can share these ideas with wider publics. The text, even
then, was highly compressed, meant to be expanded ex tempore in response to
questions and during discussions just after the lectures.
The text reflects two major influences: my years of association with America's number one scholar of "home town foreign policy," Professor Chadwick F. Alger of Ohio State University's Mershon Center and my final year (1990-1991) as a Foreign Service Officer of the U.S. Department of State when I probed at an in-house think tank the democratic origins of the League of Nations and United Nations. After 1993 my writing, lecturing and research moved on to domestic American, religious and literary themes. I have thoroughly enjoyed revisiting in 2004 "hometown foreign policy" and am still willing to give related lectures and courses to groups that invite me to do so. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ COURSE OVERVIEW [NOTE: CLICK ON LINKS BELOW TO READ TEXT] FIRST SESSION: THE IDEA OF PARTICIPATORY POLICIES: MAINLY FOREIGN POLICIES SECOND SESSION: DEMOCRATIC POLICY 1640 - 1920 THIRD SESSION: U.S DEMOCRATIC FOREIGN POLICY 1921 - 1959 FOURTH SESSION: HISTORY'S MESSAGE-- YOU, TOO, CAN MAKE FOREIGN POLICY FOR FURTHER READING ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ COURSE
OVERVIEW
To change the world you must
first notice the world. Noticing is the first step toward rejecting or
accepting, prioritizing, making policy. A policy toward the world
involves at least you yourself and may involve other private persons
acting with you.
Your world policy may also involve merely private people or it may relate to governments as well. These governments, with their power to tax and compel obedience, begin locally with school boards, town councils, county commissions and the like. Some governments embrace larger territory, are regional, State, natinal, international: alliances, leagues, NATO, the United Nations. In this course we begin by briefly recongnizing that we can and do make personal, private global or foreign policies. We also ask: what would it be like if governments commanding our loyalty also invited our personal input into their deliberations? In our first meeting we sketch an "idea" or visition of a good American foreign policy which would be a partnership between individual citizens, citizen groups and various levels of governing. The second and third meetings look at English and American history for 1640 until today (1993). We look for times and occasions when American national officials turned either toward or away from citizens in making official policy -- foreign or domestic. U.S. Government foreign policy-making was once much more innovative and participatory than it has been for the past 50 years. In our fourth meeting we apply to our daily local and global challenges not only our first meeting's preliminary, tentative vision of democratic foreign policy but also what we will have learned from British and American history in our second and third meetings. __________________________________________________________________ presented orally July 11 to August 1, 1993 revisited and lightly edited for internet 03/26/2004 Patrick Killough Black Mountain, NC |