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Among the areas where classic foreign policy analysis has been the most reshaped by contemporary multidisciplinary approaches, including American Studies and U.S political history, is in the realm of race and international policy. Studies such as Mary Dudziak's Cold War Civil Rights, Marc Gallicchio's, The African American Encounter with Japan and China and the works of Penny Von Eschen reveal the complex interface between national identity, domestic needs, and foreign relations. In addition to examining the domestic context for diplomatic choices, they broaden the scope of foreign policy actors from government and elites to artists, foreign travelers, and members of ethnic/racial minorities. The intellectual and methodological contributions of such historical works are of undoubted value for understanding current policy questions.A useful arena for integrating an American Studies approach with international relations is that of immigration law, which has often been viewed in isolation from international policy. A particularly strong case study is refugee policy and the Iraq war. Throughout the Cold War era, the United States made acceptance of refugees a cornerstone of its foreign policy. Both from humanitarian interestâ€"especially in the shadow of the Holocaustâ€"and to demonstrate its stature as leader of "the free world," the United States made a point of opening its doors to people fleeing persecution, notably defectors from communist nations. Although at times the admission of refugees was unpopular domestically, notably in the case of the entry of Indochinese refugees following the Vietnam War, advocates of the consensus view that acceptance of refugees formed part of the nation's commitment to its allies triumphed over domestic critics. The War against Terrorism and the Iraq conflict, by contrast, have given rise to a new definition of American freedom and how to defend it. Instead of continuing Cold War-era universalism, which would have meant not only working together with allies, but spotlighting a welcome to refugees from Islamic fundamentalism (such as the women whose rights it claims to be fighting to protect), the Bush Administration has developed a military policy based on independent action and has scorned alliances on an equal basis with other nations. At the same time, it has taken a (literally) isolationist position on admission of refugees, unilaterally tightening existing restrictions on entry and residence of foreign nationals. In creating the new--and suggestively named--Department of Homeland Security, it has defined its commitment to American freedom in an exclusive manner, as something to be protected, from threats conceived of as foreign by definition. Its actions, which suggest fears that entry of foreigners will threaten national values, recall the "100% Americanism" and immigration restriction associated with the post-World War I era and the period preceding Pearl Harbor. An inquiry that combines American Studies and international relations models can tie together the different strandsâ€"historical, ideological and operational--of the current situation policy and shed new light on the relevance to overall Bush administration foreign policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sheer numerical strength that Latinos enjoy in the United States has led scholars to identify the causal mechanisms that tend to explain Latino political participation rates over time. Many scholars, however, have failed to acknowledge the inter- and intra- group differences among Latinos that may be important for maintaining institutions that mobilize them. Given the importance that family life has on Latino culture, it is even more surprising that scholars have focused almost exclusively on socioeconomic indicators while neglecting the role that political socialization in the family has in influencing participation rates. While socioeconomic status is significantly lower among Latinos than it is among other racial and ethnic groups, focusing on socioeconomic indicators alone is insufficient for explaining Latino political participation. Accordingly, this paper augments our understanding of Latino political participation by examining the impact that life cycle and situational factors have on explaining the vote of certain subsets of Latinos. Specifically, we focus on the role that ecological transitions (Bronfenbrenner 1979) such as marriage, divorce and parenthood, have on the participation rates of Mexican Americans, Cubans and Puerto Ricans. The theoretical orientation follows Bronfenbrenner’s person-process-context approach by delineating those factors that precipitate ecological transitions pertaining to family life, while the empirical effect of those transitions is posited to be a significant causal mechanism for explaining participation rates. In short, by examining the effect that spousal attitudes and time restrictions stemming from marital obligations (Burns, Scholzman, and Verba 1997, 2001) have in explaining political behavior among certain categories of Latinos, we test the extent to which there is a marriage premium to Latino political participation and whether this premium differentially impacts men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]