[1] The connections can be derived from membership in a diaspora with ethnic kin in their historical homeland (e.g. Anglo-Americans and Britain, Italian-Americans and Italy, Armenian-Americans and Armenia, Arab-Americans and the Middle East); scattered among many countries (e.g. Jewish-Americans, Palestinian-Americans); or based on perceived similarities with others even though they may share little or no common ancestry (e.g. White Southerners and Afrikaners in South Africa, African-Americans and black South Africans, Muslims worldwide).
This section first describes the typical characteristics of the debates which restrict their focus to the legitimacy of or the harm caused by ethnic lobbies.
The two opposing positions often expressed in these debates: One interpretations welcomes a multicultural foreign policy and thus views the influence of ethnic groups as legitimate.
In the worst-case scenario, ethnic groups can effectively hijack the foreign policy process and use the strength of [the nation] for their parochial interests.
The uncritical embrace of ethnic interests in the formulation of foreign policy, as favored by the enriching multiculturalism interpretation, is problematic because: Equally unworkable is the complete exclusion of ethnic participation in foreign policy formulation advocated by the parochial capture interpretation: A productive alternative, according to Ambrosio,[1] to debating the abstract legitimacy or harm of ethnic influence in the general case, is reorienting the debate towards identifying, clarifying and methods of pursuing the nation's broad interests.