The Growing Role of States in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Case of the State Partnership Program

Abstract

States can and do play an important role in contemporary U.S. foreign policy. This article will discuss the growing role of states through an investigation of the State Partnership Program (SSP). The SSP pairs state National Guards with the militaries of other countries through U.S. military engagement programs. The state‐level National Guard then becomes the primary site for implementing U.S. military engagement programs. Both a federalism and decision‐making perspective, however, are unable to recognize this role. The decision‐making bias of foreign policy analysis affords states a limited international role and minimal influence in shaping the policies of the government toward other countries. An implementation perspective, however, reveals a growing role of states carrying out U.S. foreign policy, including the “high politics” of national security issues. States give decisions meaning through the practice of policy implementation. A detailed case study of the Maryland–Estonia partnership illustrates how an implementation perspective can recognize a growing role of states in shaping U.S. foreign policy.

Looking Beyond the National Level: Foreign Direct Investment Attraction in U.S. States

“…Although we do not yet have an accurate conceptualization of the international activities of subnational governments, this paper contends that the definition of transgovernmental actors should be extended to include subnational officials and that foreign policy analysis must more broadly conceive of the vertical dimensions of foreign policymaking. U.S. states are increasingly involved in supporting, challenging, and implementing foreign policy from an economic, political or defense context (Fry, 1998;Howard, 2004;Kline, 1999). Future research should explore U.S. states and governors' participation in foreign relations.…”

“…Jesse Ventura lobbying Congress for permanent trade relations with China (Hotakainen, 2000). Howard (2004) shows that U.S. states also participate in foreign defense policy through the involvement of their National Guard units in the State Partnership Program. The National Guard is federally funded, but state controlled.…”

“…While the foreign policy analysis (FPA) literature acknowledges the horizontal divisions of decisionmaking (Allison, 1971), most works ignore the vertical dimensions of foreign policy, even as some U.S. states and cities have passed resolutions and lobbied their Congressional delegations in an attempt to affect foreign relations (Howard, 2004). Rosenau (1990) points out scholars need to expand their scope of interest because problems are not segregated to one level of government in a multi-centric world.…”

Subnational Foreign Policy Actors: How and Why Governors Participate in U.S. Foreign Policy

“…Twenty‐eight states sanctioned United States and foreign businesses operating in South Africa during apartheid before Congress passed restrictions (Fry 1998:5) and six states “adopted or amended statutes to penalize firms” that complied with the Arab boycott of Israel, although the later was preempted by an amendment to the Export Administration Act in 1977 (Kline 1999:113–115). The legislator who authored Massachusetts’ South Africa law wrote its Myanmar law of the same nature, declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 (Howard 2004). California “banned certain Swiss banks from bidding on billions of dollars of bond offerings and other contracts” because it was unhappy with their explanations concerning the “disposition of gold and other assets taken from Holocaust victims prior to and during World War II” (Fry 1998:5).…”

“…states have taken positions on the Iraq war, human rights abuses in Myanmar, Indonesia, Sudan, and Nigeria, the conflict over Kashmir, and the use of Holocaust‐era bank accounts. They have adopted the Kyoto Protocol’s regulations and signed agreements with national and subnational governments involving topics such as environmental issues, trade, tourism cooperation, university exchanges, and shared government databases (Fry 1998; Kline 1999; Howard 2004). Yet governors are not the only subnational officials to go beyond their borders.…”