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Society

, Volume 51, Issue 4, pp 372–379 | Cite as

The Communitarian Foreign Policy of Amitai Etzioni

  • Nikolas K. GvosdevEmail author
Symposium: The Achievement of Amitai Etzioni
First Online:

Abstract

Amitai Etzioni’s communitarian perspective offers a comprehensive approach to international affairs in addition to offering guidance for domestic policy. His argument that a focus on traditional “realist” concerns for a nation’s security and interests (“security first”), combined with a dialogue over competing moral imperatives, is more likely to lead to the emergence of an idealist end state--a sustainable international community. His emphasis on gradualism--of breaking apart complex policy goals into small, discrete steps--comes from his assessment that this is a better way of promoting lasting change in the international system. His perspective does not fit neatly into any of the dominant U.S. foreign policy approaches, but his ideas have formed part of the foreign policy debate for the last fifty years.

Keywords

Etzioni Communitarianism Foreign policy Non-proliferation Conflict resolution International order Gradualism Democracy promotion 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.National Security Affairs DepartmentNaval War CollegeNewportUSA

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