The Politics of United States Foreign Policy

1. The Politics of United States Foreign Policy

2. History and Background • general trend over past 200 years is executive predominance in foreign policy • despite Congressional assertiveness of late, president still leads, directs and provides initiatives • Congress may check and balance president but president remains main power in foreign policy making system • Founding Fathers and Constitution • prior to Constitution Congress dominated foreign policy through Committee on Foreign Affairs • Constitution – executive expected to be main agency for carrying out foreign policy with Congressional checks and balances • Over next 200 years executive strengthened through precedents, Supreme Court, congressional delegation and deference, growth in executive office, and emergency factors

3. Presidential Training for Foreign Policy • tend to learn about foreign policy on the job • presidents tend to reflect characteristics of society as a whole – little capacity in foreign languages, seldom travel abroad, etc • career patterns of US politicians mean that they rarely ever have opportunity to study foreign policy seriously • Only three presidents had foreign policy experience • while presidency the focus of American system of government, it is often the place where least foreign policy experience lies • because of so much inexperience in presidency regarding foreign policy analysts pay attention to the entire team not just presidential candidates

4. The Paradox of Presidential Power • Extraordinary power • Extraordinary limitations

5. Power: the roles of the president formal and informal • Commander in chief • Chief diplomat • Chief administrator • Chief of state • Chief legislator • Voice of the people • Chief Judicial officer

6. Limitations: Constraints on presidential power • Time • Information • Bureaucracy • Congress • State and local governments • Political parties • Interest groups and social movements

7. Additional Constraints: uncertain elements • The courts • Public opinion • The media • The global and historical context

8. Power and Patterns • Power: the ability to influence the surrounding environment in ways one prefers • Positive Power • Negative Power

9. The domain of power: Issue areas • Domestic issues • Foreign policy issues • Intermestic issues

10. Problems of governance: Life Cycle • Initial high: electoral mandate • End of honeymoon—cycles of highs and lows • Congress • Parties • Media • Public Support • Crises • Lame duck

11. Problems of governance:Crisis of Leadership • Power constrained • Promises unmet • Government divisions • No continuity

12. Presidential Leadership • Power to persuade • Persuasion • Passive versus active roles • Three elements of leadership • Professional reputation • Public prestige • Presidential choices

13. Presidential Leadership • Passive: “clerk” • Active: • Prerogative government • Frontlash • Backlash • Overshoot and collapse

14. The Foreign Policy President:four stages • Model: Great Depression and WWII • Supremacy: post WWII and early cold war • Decline: post-Vietnam War • Complex: post-cold war

15. Presidential Character and Personality • aka psychohistory • assumption: every individual has strengths and weakness and personality traits derived from early experiences and president’s performance can be explained or predicted if you know these early experiences

16. James David Barber – positive and negative personalities • positive personalities – optimistic, forceful, dynamic, enthusiastic outlooks • negative personalities – withdrawn, lonely, complexes, chip on shoulder, • additional matrix includes president’s attitudes toward public policy (active or passive) • matrices combined to assess influence of personality and public policy orientation • problems with approach • may be biased in that it favors activists • runs risk of being pop-psychology • does not allow for mixed types • disagreement of interpreting events which makes placement into boxes controversial

17. Personality Traits Positive Negative Active Roosevelt Eisenhower Truman Kennedy Clinton Reagan Public Policy Passive Johnson Coolidge Nixon Carter