Abstract

The subject of this chapter has received surprisingly little attention among students of American foreign policy. This is not because the foreign economic bureaucracy is inconsequential— though it is arguably less significant than, for example, the Department of Defense. A partial explanation, perhaps, is that scholarly interest in the foreign affairs bureaucracy in general was waning in the decades (beginning with the 1970s) as a semi-autonomous U.S. foreign economic bureaucracy was emerging. The result, in any case, is that compared to others in this volume, this contribution will focus more on the topic itself and less on how scholars have probed and interpreted it.