Q1: KTJ Scott

Q1: Can pressure from citizens ever add a foreign policy issue to the list of traditional national interests? Or can citizens only impact the sense of urgency around an issue that was already a traditional national interest to start with?

KTJ Scott:

I am not entirely certain what is included on the list of national interests that doesn’t get influenced by current events. Once a foreign policy issue is added to the national agenda, does it ever come back off?  Or does it simply move to a back burner until the sense of urgency is re-ignited – either by citizen advocacy and action or by another pressure, such as economic interests?

I would make the case that, in theory and rhetoric, the United States does not want genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes to continue to occur in the world. And we have signed enough statements and international policy, like Responsibility to Protect, after the fact to uphold this rhetoric. So on the surface, albeit in the back of the line, protecting innocent civilians appears to be on the political agenda.

If this is true, then let’s take the question a step further, can a specific region or country be placed on the list of foreign policy interests because of citizen pressure? My answer is absolutely. A simple example is South Sudan. Although the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the North and South is shaky, and there have been bumps and growing pains, the all out killing and intense suffering of innocent civilians has, for the most part, ceased.

I am not a policy expert or an African expert, nor am I even a Sudan expert, but what I see as a grassroots activist in the CPA is political will stemming from citizen pressure. The Christian Right was former President Bush’s largest voting constituency during his first term in office. Christian groups advocated intensely with the administration to put an end to the Christians killings in the South by the Sudanese government. If Bush had not acted to help broker peace in the region, he risked losing his greatest voting base. Political will.

Darfur and ending genocide are already considered foreign policy interests. I think that the citizens and movement really re-ignited the urgency and moved them closer to top of the agenda. This is the first time that there has been an anti-genocide movement while the genocide is going on. I think what is missing from the movement’s message is, “I will not vote for you the next time, if you do not work to bring peace to all of Sudan and Darfur.”  By adding this to our message, we move from creating urgency for a national interest to creating political will.

KTJ Scott – is Director of Community Programming Stop Genocide Now. She has visited the Chad-Darfur border region four times with i-ACT