The idea that “partisan politics stops at the water’s edge” has a long lineage with respect to US foreign policy, beginning with Daniel Webster and the War of 1812, and including Woodrow Wilson, Walter Lippmann, and Senator Vandenberg and the 1947 debate over the Marshall Plan and NATO. It became an expression for the notion of a bipartisan foreign policy.
It light of what many regard as deep political polarization within the American public in recent years, there is concern that such polarization gravely affects US foreign policy and the conduct of US diplomacy.
The Salon Dinner conversation this month will address the relationship between domestic politics, US foreign policy, and the conduct of US diplomacy. More specifically, Salon participants will consider:
Political polarization: what are its symptoms? how serious is it? What are its causes? Is it inherently a “bad thing” or is it reflective of differences of opinion one can expect in a democratic polity?
Partisan division and policy-making: how do deep and persistent differences between the parties affect the making of policy – in particular, foreign policy? Do they hamper, stifle, or slow policy consensus? Do they prevent urgent decision-making altogether in crises?
The way ahead: if political polarization is a serious and harmful condition, what options are there for overcoming, diminishing, or working around it?
Initiating the Salon conversation will be Tom Reston, a DACOR member who has been active in Democratic Party politics for many years and has reflected on his affiliation with the Democratic Party and its relevance to American democracy in his book, Soul of a Democrat. President Jimmy Carter appointed Reston as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs. Joining Tom Reston in leading off the Salon conversation will be Ambassador Roger Noriega, an appointee in both Bush administrations to key policy and leadership positions, including that as Senior Advisor at the US Mission to Organization of American States (OAS) and Assistant Secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Hemispheric Affairs.
Thomas B. Reston has spent a lifetime in politics, working in eight presidential campaigns at the national level, and countless local and statewide efforts. He was twice elected Secretary of the Democratic Party of Virginia. Reston was a political appointee in the Foreign Service under President Jimmy Carter, serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A civil rights advocate, he was twice Board Chair of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF).
Founder and currently Managing Director of the consultant firm, Vision Americas LLC, Ambassador (Ret.) Roger F. Noriega has more than three decades of public policy experience focusing on U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere. After a 10-year career on Capitol Hill, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to senior State Department posts.
As U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs (July 2003 to October 2005), Noriega managed a 3,000-person team in Washington and 50 diplomatic posts to design and implement political and economic strategies in Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
As U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States (August 2001 to July 2003), Noriega coordinated complex and sensitive multilateral diplomacy in a 34-member international organization to bolster trade, fight illicit drugs, and defend democracy.
Noriega was a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research from 2005-2020, commenting and addressing the greatest challenges and opportunities facing the Americas.
