Executive Summary
A Global
Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations
The U.S. government has failed to craft an effective foreign policy for the
post-Cold War, post-9/11 world. Despite the growing interdependency of peoples
and nations around the world, U.S. foreign
policy is increasingly influenced by unilateralist interests. The International
Relations Center (IRC) proposes a change in the paradigm in which we discuss U.S. foreign policy. It is encapsulated in the
forthcoming Special Report A Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International
Relations, a product of the IRC and Foreign Policy in Focus.
A Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations draws heavily
from an earlier period in U.S. history
when U.S. foreign policy was aggressively
imperialist, yet emerged to offer a new, compelling, and transformative vision
to animate and rejuvenate U.S. foreign
policy and the role of the United States
in the world. This period--the Good Neighbor era initiated by President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt--presented a dramatic departure from a U.S. foreign policy that focused on empire building to a
policy based on an international society in the aftermath of the devastation of
World War II, and the creation of the United Nations.
With its Global Good Neighbor Initiative, the IRC hopes to incite a new
vision and practice for U.S. foreign policy--a vision that
embraces reflections from people around the world and is grounded in the belief
that U.S. citizens should be active
participants in the formation of a new foreign policy. Forthcoming papers in
the Global Good Neighbor series include regional policy overviews that apply
the ethic’s principles to each of the world’s regions and a thematic series on
the major issues of international relations, including security, sustainable
development, and governance.
(The authors of A Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations
are Tom Barry Policy Director of the International Relations Center
(IRC) -- online at http://www.irc-online.org
-- and the founder of Foreign Policy In Focus, Salih Booker Executive
Director of Africa Action and co-chair of the IRC's board of directors, Laura
Carlsen Director of the IRC Americas Program, Marie Dennis Director
of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns and a member of the IRC board of
directors, John Gershman Codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus and the
director of the IRC Global Affairs Program.)
The four-page executive summary of the A Global Good Neighbor Ethic of
International Relations is available: http://www.irc-online.org/content/ggn/index.php#index
The full report will available on Monday 16 May 2005 following a press conference at the
United Nations.
An introductory report The Global Good Neighbor Policy--A History to Make Us
Proud, is available: http://www.irc-online.org/content/ggn/index.php#index.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In
conjunction with the IRC’s 25th anniversary, we have a new name: International
Relations Center (formerly Interhemispheric
Resource Center). We remain committed to our mission of “Working to make the United States a more responsible member of the
global community by promoting strategic dialogues that lead to new
citizen-based agendas.”
