bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1989), pp. 43–44
The Uneasy Alliance: Religion, Refugee
Work, and U.S. Foreign Policy, by J. Bruce
Nichols, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988), 337 pp., $37.50.
Reviewed by Gerald Dirks
Scholars, journalists, politicians and retired career diplomats have together authored thousands of books on the subject of American foreign policy during the more than forty years since the United States achieved super power status. The overwhelming majority of these works have had as their focus themes such as U.S. national security, strategic defense issues, super power competition and America’s changing role in the global economy. Less frequently do books become available that centre attention on the interaction among non-governmental organizations and their interrelationship with the U.S. government in the foreign policy realm. The volume under review is the most comprehensive publication known to this reviewer to concentrate upon the foreign humanitarian programs of major American religious organizations and how they were influenced by, and in return sought to have an impact upon, U.S. policy objectives and tactics.
In sixteen chapters, the author who is Director of Education and Studies at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, seeks to accomplish much — possibly too much. The initial four chapters described in considerable detail the humanitarian programs for refugee assistance initiated and operated by American Jewish, Protestant and Catholic associations during the years between World War One and approximately 1960. The subsequent ten chapters which are the core of the volume, discuss the efforts of religious organizations to maintain some autonomy and theological integrity in the face of governmental efforts at cooptation and domination. The ideological nature of many of the issues that have brought stress to the relations of the U.S. government, not only with the Soviet Union but also with developing states, is effectively examined. The middle chapters contain thoroughly researched case studies of religious non-governmental organizations humanitarian work in Honduras, Thailand and Sudan. Here, the events that have caused some church-based organizations to adopt moderately radicalized advocacy approaches towards the American government in their efforts to aid genuine refugees are forcefully described. The final chapters are somewhat more juridical, dealing with questions of constitutionality and extraterritoriality as they relate to the rights and obligations of churches and their employees involved in foreign operations. The book concludes with a prescriptive appeal for a form of renewed humanitarianism aimed at restoring the consensus that operated among religious groups and the U.S. government in earlier times.
Nichols has provided his readers with much to contemplate respecting church-state relations in the U.S. It is unlikely than many meaningful parallels exist between the American situation and that involving the Canadian government and religious organizations operating humanitarian programs from this country. The strategic, global political interests of the U.S. combined with a long history of American Supreme Court decisions makes any comparison one might choose to attempt rather contrived and at best misleading.
While the book concentrates upon several issues and situations of interest to observers of American governmental and nongovernmental relations in the humanitarian field abroad, two episodes are particularly noteworthy to this reviewer. First, the treatment of efforts by religious groups to challenge U.S. policy in Central America is most enlightening. Nichols, using the files of several church-based agencies, systematically describes the emergence of tension and ultimately distrust between various voluntary organizations and the U.S. government concerning the protection of refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala. The manner in which the Office of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees was emasculated in its Central American operations by official U.S. policy also is effectively recounted. One chapter deals in part with the sanctuary movement among American churches that ultimately rose to combat official U.S. policy to deport Central American refugees.
A second aspect of church-state interaction described thoroughly deals with the theological justification major U.S. religious organizations developed to explain their attitudes and actions, both pro and con, towards American government refugee assistance policies around the world. The views of fundamentalist and mainstream Protestant agencies, liberal and conservative Catholic groups and moderate and rather extremist Jewish associations receive attention respecting such issues as American policies towards Cuba, Haiti, Indo-China, Israel and the Palestinians.
As comprehensive and ably researched as it is, this book is not without its weaknesses. The first is a general shortcoming noticeable throughout the volume. The second type of problem is more specific and by no means impairs the entire value of the book.
The most serious of the weaknesses is the emphasis the author places upon description at the cost of analysis and explanation. Time and time again, the reader is told what is happening but is left guessing as to why it happened. Seldom does this book seriously explore the broad range of forces that must have accounted for the actions of voluntary organizations in their foreign humanitarian programs.
The second more specific problem which readers will find irritating concerns some errors in fact. While they are not numerous, they nevertheless are a reflection of some mild scholarly sloppiness. To illustrate, Nichols asserts that the International Refugee Organization, which functioned between 1947 and 1952, was not, in fact, part of the United Nations family of agencies. While it is not clear why he holds this view, one is led to the belief that it is because the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies never participated in its activities. The absence of the Soviet Block did not prevent the I.R.O. from operating under the U.N. umbrella.
A further error has Nichols continuing to place Yugoslavia within the Soviet camp in 1951, the year that Government along with twenty-five other states drafted the International Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. In fact, Stalin had drummed Tito and the Yugoslavian Communist Party out of the Soviet dominated realm in the late nineteen forties.
On a more positive note, the effective organization of material and the well written text with useful footnotes merit acknowledgement. The volume is one intended, it is assumed, for a rather specialized readership. Without doubt, persons interested in interactions among non-governmental agencies or between such bodies and the U.S. government should find this descriptive work intriguing and, maybe, even a little worrisome.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1989), pp. 43–44. Read the rest of this issue →
