Professional paper
BIG GOVERNMENT AND THE PRINCIPLE OF THE LIMITED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. THE ISSUE OF EMPLOYING THE MEANS OF COVERT ACTIVITY IN THE US FOREIGN POLICY
Ante Barišić
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The US governance model created in the 1930s and known as the Big Government is analyzed within the context of its application in foreign policy. The author looks into the foreign-policy role of the American federal government as well as the dynamics of the relationship between the executive and the legislature during and following the cold war period and focusing on the changes occuring after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. In the text special emphasis is put on the analysis of the cold-war legacy of the so-called non-traditional instruments of the foreign-policy interventionism or the resources and techniques of covert activity. The author concludes that the extensive utilization of these instruments has significantly undermined the principle of the limited federal government as one of the fundaments of American politics. However, in the light of the new mobilization of the resoruces in the fight against terrorism, it is necessary once again to evaluate the means of covert activity.
Keywords
“Big Government”; executive; legislature; principles of limited federal government; foreign policy; nontraditional instruments of foreign policy; the “third option”; methods of covert activity; interventionism
Hrčak ID:
23707
URI
Publication date:
5.3.2003.
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