Foreign Policy Advocacy and Entrepreneurship: How a New Generation in Congress Is Shaping U.S. Engagement with the World

Foreign Policy Advocacy and Entrepreneurship highlights advocacy and activism across party lines and probes implications for theory and policy-making. It explores original case studies of eight U.S. policy-makers who challenged authority during the Obama administration-from war veterans and fundamentalist Christian activists to former spies and minority legislators. Newly elected representatives in both parties dove into issues that sometimes seem well beyond the interests of their constituents and that defy their own party leadership. Junior entrepreneurs have employed a combination of formal legislative strategies for successful influence and informal networking, policy narratives, and communication strategies. While some congressional initiatives have succeeded in changing U.S. foreign policy and others have failed, a new generation of legislators appears to be gaining greater influence over U.S. foreign policy in the polarized atmosphere of Washington, D.C. Entrepreneurship by junior members of Congress represent a puzzle for traditional foreign policy studies that focus on seniority, party discipline, and the rigid institutional systems on Capitol Hill. By melding entrepreneurship and policy advocacy literature, this book advances a new typology of foreign policy entrepreneurship, recognizing the impact of multidimensional strategies of influence.