ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 detailed how the George W. Bush Administrations applied human rights inconsistently in foreign policy. The chapter hypothesized that the hegemonic discourse was, however, consistently applied in the sense of a mechanism of governance that allocates identities to political actors and thereby produces an internally coherent reality of foreign policy in the minds of the audience. This analysis may appear abstract and unhelpful to those readers more interested in the underlying interests and values advanced by the Bush Administrations. To be of help to such readers, Chapter 4 aims to detail the connections between the Bush Administrations and particular elements of domestic civil society focusing upon evangelical religious groups, think tanks and corporate interests. This chapter analyzes how a focus on these elements of domestic civil society can reveal patterns in how human rights have been applied in the foreign policy of the Bush Administrations. This chapter is structured into two sections. The first section looks at how specific values advanced by favored groups have found representation in policies sponsored by the White House and resonate in the human rights discourse expressed by the Bush Administrations. The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) will be incorporated as a particular study to illustrate how favored elements of domestic civil society have influenced the application of human rights in a specific foreign policy initiative.
