ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses American thinking about foreign aid by considering the general cultural and ideological environment in which public judgments and evaluations are made. Foreign policy is physically and psychologically remote from most people. The chapter is concerned with the cultural underpinnings of opinion leads to expect opinions and attitudes to be formed not so much through deliberate thought and analysis as through reactions to "images" or generalizations about foreign aid. Americans rely on three principal sets of criteria in evaluating foreign aid: whether foreign aid policies are consistent with traditional American responses to the international environment; the role of foreign aid in current diplomatic strategy; and the place of foreign aid in the area of government economic policy. The frequently described postwar "revolution" in American foreign policy consists in part of public endorsement of increased economic, political, and military activity overseas.
