ABSTRACT
Since the late 1940s, American farmers have consistently produced more food than could be consumed within the United States. United States foreign agricultural policy, like international economic policy of which it is part, has traditionally been conceived as being primarily the product of two, often competing sets of interests: domestic economic policy and general foreign policy. This chapter demonstrates that a state interest approach is superior to alternative analytical frameworks for understanding the process of United States foreign agricultural policy-making. The basic analytical assumption of a statist approach to the study of foreign policy is that there exists a distinction between the state and society. Stephen Krasner believes that a further understanding of a statist perspective can be demonstrated by contrasting it with two major alternative approaches to the political process, Marxism and liberalism. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
