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Human Rights And U.S. Foreign Policy In The Multilateral Development Banks, Daniel Braaten

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Promoting human rights is an important foreign policy goal for the United States. There are many foreign policy areas through which the U.S. promotes human rights including voting against countries which violate human rights in the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). Promoting human rights, however, is not the only foreign policy goal of the U.S. in the MDBs. The U.S. also seeks strategic goals such as supporting allies and promoting domestic economic prosperity as well in the MDBs. Realist international relations theory posits that strategic interests will trump promoting human rights in the MDBs. For the U.S. however liberal international relations …