Politics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people interested in governments, policies, and political processes. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
It is often claimed that US foreign policy is essentially guided and handled by the 'establishment' or an 'elite'. It is implied that these individuals are extremely influential and often unelected. Is this a conspiracy theory or is it grounded in factual evidence?
Who are the people part of this elite? Who are the 'establishment' and what are their political goals?
"The establishment" and "the elite" are just disparaging terms used to refer to people who have built up a political career by engaging with the established parties and systems. The accusation is that these organizations represent a kind of club that politicians want to join for the benefits they will receive (power, money, access, that kind of thing) and thus their actions are purely selfish and cannot be trusted.
It's something of a conspiracy theory too, suggesting that established political parties have some kind of hidden agenda and that anyone who associates with them is trying to pursue it.
In short it's too incoherent to really answer your question in a satisfactory way. The specific goals of "the establishment" vary depending on what the speaker is objecting to at the time, or what they can spin into a conspiracy.
These are, as far as I know, referring to two different groups that may be of similar purposes but only somewhat overlap. Note please that I'm using the word "group" in the loosest possible sense, it isn't clear at all that these groups act in some sort of concerted fashion as much as they share or have compatible goals/means.
This refers to the fact that politics has not only become a career in itself, but has spawned an entire cottage industry of ancillary jobs: staffer, aide, lobbyist, campaign management, etc. There are a lot of people in Washington D.C. whose financial fortunes are tied up with the current order. Because this group is presumably large and geographically co-located, it creates the impression that it is a culture unto itself: even if Democrats and Republicans are on opposite sides they're both caught up in the same game. To say someone is a member of the "Establishment" is to claim that their opinion is untrustworthy because they have too much at stake in the current order to effect meaningful change.
This refers to a group that only occasionally overlaps the first and is comprised of financial, political, and cultural leaders. Elites influence policy directly through campaign contributions/lobbying/running for office, but also indirectly via cultural means such as media and entertainment. Again, all of this makes it sound like this is coordinated but it need not be: merely the sum of personal and cultural vectors pointing in the same direction. The moniker "elite" also carries class connotations that may or may not hold in any given case.
One of the most visible political figures is the President. So let's look at the ones during the course of my lifetime:
Every single one of them were either extremely rich or famous or both with the exception of Obama and Clinton, the latter of whom was still pretty well-off. Note that losing presidential candidates tend to follow this pattern as well (Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and Mitt Romney being a couple of particularly stark examples). This creates an impression that rather than some unbiased meritocracy the public instead is expected to be grateful to have a choice as to which particular multimillionaire relative/spouse of a former national politician gets to nominally run the show.
"The establishment" is simply the group of people who have significant power in the government or politics generally. It is true that most of this group is unelected, it includes extremely wealthy individuals, the directors/chief officers of large corporations, Democratic/Republican Party leadership, high ranking military officers, and the heads of several government agencies (though those are mostly appointed by elected officials).
It is also true that some of this group controls foreign policy. Overtly in the case of the President, Congress, and their foreign policy advisors. There are also members of the establishment with a vested interest in specific foreign policy outcomes (e.g. a defense contractor benefits from more wars) and they often lobby those with direct control of foreign policy to enact those outcomes. While it is difficult to directly prove that lobbying influences policy an analysis of public policy does show that the interests of economic elites are served over the interests of the majority in almost all cases.
The establishment collectively are a group with some common interest, but I personally doubt that extends beyond support for policies that benefit high income/wealth individuals. Foreign policy is certainly part of that, but there isn't any evidence of an actual conspiracy to shape foreign policy to be what it is today. This is a case of many individuals acting in their own individual interests.
Since it can be used by both major parties as a criticism, one simple definition of “The Establishment” could be the union of the set of agenda items between each major party (the center region of a venn diagram). For example, while Democrats and Republicans differ on abortion, gun control, and tax policy, they agree on NSA spying, preventing criticism of Israel, the increasing use of executive power, the use of military force in many foreign conflicts, etc. Just look at which bills pass with bipartisan consent to get a feel for what the agenda is.
The status quo/establishment is the part of government that rarely changes, regardless of who is in power. Of course, both sides of the aisle would always prefer to be portrayed as fighting against “the establishment.”
