"Smith ranges over the history of ethnic group involvement in foreign affairs; he notes the openness of our political system to interest groups; and he investigates the relationship between multiculturalism and U.S. foreign policy. The book has three major propositions. First, ethnic groups play a larger role in American foreign policymaking than is widely recognized. Second, the negative consequences of ethnic group involvement today outweighs the benefits this activism at times confers on America's role in world affairs. And third, the tensions of a pluralist democracy are particularly apparent in the making of foreign policy, where the self-interested demands of a host of domestic actors raise an enduring problem of democratic citizenship - the need to reconcile general and particular interests."--BOOK JACKET.