ABSTRACT
The introductory chapter reviews the conceptual and practical debates that underlie the foreign policy process in the American context, including the cooperative and conflictual methods of decision-making. The proper place of human rights and fundamental freedoms in U.S. foreign policy has long been debated among scholars, politicians, and the American public. The history of U.S. human rights policy unfolds as a series of prevarications that are the result of presidential preferences, conflict, and cooperation among bureaucratic actors, and of various political events. In addition, the introduction outlines the place of foreign aid as a tool of U.S. foreign policy.
