An "Invitation to Struggle"? The Use of Force Against "Legislatively Vulnerable" American Presidents

Abstract

Recently, international relations scholars have posited that, though economically unsuccessful American presidents may have incentives to divert via international conflict, their potential adversaries are also privy to their plight and may seek to avoid fighting them at such junctures. However, this “strategic conflict avoidance” (SCA) perspective offers relatively few insights concerning the impact of a potentially important source of leadership weakness in the American case: legislative opposition to presidential policy. Indeed, scholars seem uncertain about whether general legislative opposition actually drives American presidents to divert or leads them to refrain from international ventures. This article seeks to develop and test a general theory concerning the targeting of presidents who face legislative opposition to their foreign policies. The article predicts that economic distress increases “conflict avoidance” on the part of potential adversaries, whereas overt legislative opposition to presidential foreign policy decreases the utility of diversion and creates transparent elite divisions that invite targeting. Negative binomial generalized estimating equations (GEE) models of the U.S. foreign policy experience from 1949 to 2001 support these predictions, in that the U.S. is less likely to be the target of incident initiation by other states when the economic misery index increases, but is more likely to be targeted when members of Congress voice displeasure with presidential foreign policy. Further analyses show that these findings are generally strongest during periods of high American inflation, in the context of enduring rivalries, and during the Cold War.

Opportunities and Presidential Uses of Force

“…In fact, Smith suggests that foreign governments will be deterred from military interventions against the US when a president is both extremely popular (competent) and extremely unpopular (incompetent). 12 This latter result is confirmed by Meernik (2000), although Foster (2006) shows targeting of the US decreases during poor economic times. externalization models-a challenge supported by recent research on the bargaining theory of war as well as signaling accounts of violent inter-state conflict (see Fearon, 1995;Gartzke, 1999;Powell, 2004).…”

“…Moreover, the expectations associated with the forms of vulnerability differ according to whether the theorist considers the role of strategic interaction. On the other hand, the signaling perspective suggests that partisan support should buttress the president's signal of resolve, leading US adversaries to capitulate, eliminating the necessity of a use of force (Schultz, 1998;Foster, 2006). For instance, diversionary theory anticipates a causal link between domestic political and economic turmoil and the use of military force (e.g.…”

“…Two prominent sources of domestic vulnerability for the president include economic misfortune and congressional opposition. Attempts to answer this question suggest insufficient theoretical and empirical attention has been given to strategic interaction and selection bias (Foster, 2006). Levy, 1989;Morgan and Bickers, 1992;Richards et al, 1993).…”

“…But other research-referred to as the strategic conflict avoidance (SCA) perspective-suggests that opportunities for diversion are limited under such conditions as potential targets for US diversions actively avoid behavior that could result in their targeting (Smith, 1996;Leeds and Davis, 1997;Fordham, 2005;Foster, 2006). the crisis under investigation) may be correlated with partisan opposition to the president's policies (see also Foster, 2006). A similar problem exists for theories linking congressional opposition to US uses of force.…”

Introduction to CMPS Special Issue

“…This approach enables Brulé, Marshall and Prins to simultaneously test four expectations about domestic vulnerability and foreign policy conflict, of which diversion is one, including strategic conflict avoidance (SCA) (Smith, 1996;Leeds and Davis, 1997), party cover (Howell and Pevehouse, 2007), and signalling (Schultz, 1998;Foster, 2006). This approach enables Brulé, Marshall and Prins to simultaneously test four expectations about domestic vulnerability and foreign policy conflict, of which diversion is one, including strategic conflict avoidance (SCA) (Smith, 1996;Leeds and Davis, 1997), party cover (Howell and Pevehouse, 2007), and signalling (Schultz, 1998;Foster, 2006).…”