The Influence of Interest Groups on U.S. Foreign Policy under D. Trump: An Experience of Cognitive Analysis

Abstract

Significant changes in U.S. foreign policy, which were first declared during the election campaign and then began to be consistently implemented by Donald Trump and his administration, were in many ways a break with the established and successive foreign policy strategy, which has made this case the subject of numerous analyses and studies. This study attempts to examine the influence of interest groups on U.S. foreign policy under D. Trump through the prism of several approaches - interest group theory, network approach, cognitive analysis (using cognitive mapping methodology). As a result of the conducted research, practical results in the form of cognitive maps were obtained, and the limitations of the used methodology within the framework of the analysis of this case study were revealed.

Keywords

• interest groups
• u.s. foreign policy
• donald trump
• network approach
• cognitive mapping