Congressional Support of the President: A Comparison of Foreign, Defense, and Domestic Policy Decision Making during and after the Cold War

Abstract

Recent research on congressional-executive relations has concluded that partisan and ideological forces explaining decision making in domestic policy have also become dominant in the realm of foreign policy. Accordingly, scholars have inferred the effective demise of the two-presidencies. In this analysis, the authors compare models explaining bipartisan congressional support of the president on domestic issues with that of foreign and defense. Although factors relating to the congressional context tended to be influential in both policy areas, they found important differences in the effects of factors relating to the international context. They also found that congressional bipartisan support was significantly less likely on matters related to the purse strings and on issues such as trade. The contrasting effects of the explanatory factors across policy areas suggest the importance of both the two-presidencies and resurgent Congress perspectives in explaining congressional-executive interactions.With the end of the cold war, it seems unlikely that a broad domestic consensus will arise concerning the role of the United States in the newly emerging international order. Charles Kegley (1993), for instance, believed that the end of the cold war has changed "all the answers and all the questions" (p. 141), and cold war icon Paul Nitze (1999) saw a new international system that offers "less direct traditional security threats to the United States" (p. 3).660 Presidential Studies Quarterly 31, no. 4 (December)

Partisan polarization and US foreign policy: Is the centre dead or holding?

“…Advocates of the dead centre hypothesis have offered a variety of arguments to explain the alleged increase in foreign policy polarization. The most prominent amongst them attribute polarization to the impact of the Vietnam War on the policy preferences of members of the two parties (Kupchan and Trubowitz, 2007;Nincic and Datta, 2007;Shapiro and Bloch-Elkon, 2005), the effects of the end of the Cold War (Kupchan and Trubowitz, 2007;Marshall and Prins, 2002), changes in the foreign policy issue agenda to include more economic and 'intermestic' issues (Prins and Marshall, 2001;McCormick and Wittkkopf, 1992), and the broad changes in partisan ideology and institutional procedures which are held to be responsible for the general increase in partisan polarization in Congress since the 1970s (Fleisher and Bond, 2004;Jacobson, 2000;McCarty et al, 2006;Theriault, 2008). Whichever individual explanation or combination of these explanations is preferred, however, all are premised on an ongoing and/or permanent change in the independent variable(s) which, in turn, produces a similarly permanent and ongoing change in the dependent polarization variable as a result.…”

“…In the first instance, there is a broad consensus that in the period between the late 1940s and early 1970s the making of US foreign policy was characterized by low levels of polarization (McClosky et al, 1960;McCormick and Wittkopf, 1990;Meernik, 1993;Prins and Marshall, 2001). Indeed, the extent of bipartisan support for the foreign policies of presidents of both parties in this period led Aaron Wildavsky to articulate his famous 'two presidencies' thesis, in which he claimed that presidents gained congressional support for their policy position 'about 70 percent of the time in defense and foreign policy, compared with 40 percent in the domestic sphere' (Wildavsky, 1966: 8).…”

“…Most analyses of elite and mass survey data suggest that the foreign policy preferences of Republicans and Democrats have become increasingly distinct over the last four-and-a-half decades (Newman and Siegle, 2010: 352-3;Nincic, 2008;Nincic and Datta, 2007: 242-4;Shapiro and Bloch-Elkon, 2005), whilst the majority of studies of congressional voting behaviour also conclude that partisan polarization has increased over that period Trubowitz, 2007, 2010;McCormick, 2010: 484-7;McCormick et al, 1997;McCormick and Wittkopf, 1990;Prins and Marshall, 2001;Trubowitz and Mellow, 2011). The majority view, then, is that partisan polarization has increasingly affected foreign policy-making and that, just as in domestic politics, the moderate centre ground has been abandoned.…”

International Conflicts and Decision Making on the Federal District Courts

“…Next, government officials develop policy responses to the national-security threat that often involve suppressing civil rights and liberties at home (e.g., Duggan, 2005;Heymann, 2002;Tushnet, 2003). Congress, in an effort both to avoid drawing the ire of a public that has rallied around the president and to present a united front (e.g., Schultz, 1998), recognizes the executive as the nation's voice in foreign affairs (e.g., Hinckley, 1994;Koh, 1996) by endorsing the president's crisis-related prerogatives (e.g., Edwards, 1976;Fleisher and Bond, 1988;Meernik, 1993;Peterson, 1994;Prins and Marshall, 2001;Wildavsky, 1966; but see Fleisher et al, 2000). Once these policies take effect, members of the public bring lawsuits challenging these governmental actions as unconstitutionally restricting their civil rights and liberties, ultimately giving the judicial branch final say on the matter (although Congress can have "last licks" by stripping federal courts of jurisdiction or overriding statutory decisions, while the president can indifferently enforce judicial decisions).…”

Comportamento legislativo e política externa na América Latina

“…5 Como apontam Prins and Marshall (2001), esta maior assertividade legislativa em política externa fez com que o Presidente Clinton, em 1993, tenha (Almeida, 2000;Lima e Santos, 2001;Santos, 2006;Oliveira, 2003Oliveira, , 2005Stuhldreher, 2003;Ava e Merke, 2011 Waltz (1979), por exemplo). A abordagem teórica da Análise de Política Externa (foreign policy analysis) estabelece um contraponto às correntes teóricas citadas, criticando a sua incapacidade de analisar mudanças ocorridas na política externa dos países dentro de uma mesma estrutura do sistema internacional.…”