A Note on Instrumentalism

Upon further review, I can see how this post, in which I remarked on conservative instrumentalism, contradicted this one, in which I sympathized with Ross Douthat's defense of Kristol and Kagan on the question of whether they were giving too much weight to the interests of the conservative movement in staking out their foreign policy positions.

I think I was insufficiently critical of Douthat. While it's certainly true that there is inevitable overlap between one's domestic political interests and one's views on foreign policy, the major difference between liberals and conservatives over the past few decades has been that it's the latter who have had a self-identified "movement" in need of care and feeding. Certainly one can't imagine establishment liberals using space in their foreign policy papers to reflect on the priorities of the "liberal movement."