Chapter 9: Social Movements and Interest Groups

Exercises

Understanding Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs)

1. Use the NGO Links index at www.ngo.org/links/index.htm to select an NGO.

2. Where is the NGO located? What type of NGO is it? Is it for-profit or nonprofit? Describe its mission.

3. What government groups does this NGO interact with? What influence, if any, does this group have in U.S. foreign policy? What factors do you believe lead to this influence?

4. Which NGOs are this group's rivals? Does the NGO address any of these rivals? If so, how? If not, how could the NGO do so?

5. Is this group's ideology liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between? Does this translate into working with or against certain political parties?

Investigating the Connection between Multinational Corporations and U.S. Foreign Policy

1. Visit the “Foreign and Defense Policy” page of the Center for Responsive Politics at http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=Q04 .

2. Use the links at the top left side of the Web page to investigate campaign contributions and lobbying in U.S. foreign policy.

3. How much money was contributed in the last three presidential and congressional elections under the “Foreign and Defense Policy” category? Which party received more contributions in each of these years? Do PACs, individual contributions, or soft money account for more of the donations?

4. Which senator, representative, and presidential candidate received the largest contributions in 1996, 2000, and 2004, respectively? What groups gave the most money in each of those years? Who was the top contributor to Republicans? Who was the top contributor to Democrats? What contribution trends, if any, do the data you have uncovered suggest?

Comparing Social Movements

1. Review the websites for The Pacifica Radio/UC Berkeley Social Activism Sound Recording Project: Anti-Vietnam War Protests in the San Francisco Bay Area & Beyond ( www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet ) and United for Peace and Justice ( www.unitedforpeace.org ) on the Iraq War.

2. Using these websites as starting points, compare and contrast the missions of the Vietnam and Iraq War social movements. What were the goals? What were the means used to try and achieve these goals? Were they successful?

3. What foreign policy actors were targeted by the differing movements? Were they responsive? Why or why not?

4. What challenges did the groups in both of these social movements face?