Abstract
The Constitution’s division of powers from which E. Corwin famously asserted an “invitation to struggle” in the making of US foreign policy (1957, 171) has become overshadowed by partisan conflict in the contemporary era. Although much of the extant literature points to Congress’s subsidiary role in foreign policy relative to the presidency-centered model, the appeal of partisanship has worked to further deepen congressional abrogation and extend presidential unilateralism (Lindsay in Congress and the politics of U.S. Foreign Policy. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1994; Kriner in After the rubicon: congress, presidents, and the politics of waging war. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2010; Potter in Pres Stud Quart 46(4):849–867, 2016). Our analysis illustrates a puzzle. On one hand, there are growing levels of majority support in the USA for political leadership on the world stage. But on the other hand, our analysis of congressional behavior such as voting, lawmaking, and oversight shows relatively clear patterns of congressional decline—Congress no longer exercises much of its power in foreign affairs, neither in form or substance. Partisan incentives for congressional abdication to the presidency carry at least one additional risk we point to: Congressional capitulation from its constitutional duty places democracy in the jeopardy that the Framers’ design was intended to prevent.
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01 October 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-022-00408-6
Notes
Our focus in this argument is more on party conflict that results from party competition when MCs behave strategically with an eye toward majority control as compared to conflict that may result from ideological differences between MCs (Lee 2016). Although polarization or ideological conflict remains an important factor, we think party conflict resulting from competition for majority control has become a key motivator in understanding the more recent dynamics of congressional decline and presidential ascendency.
In addition, Lindsay suggests the growth of foreign policy lobbying and interest groups significantly altered the incentives for members of Congress to take positions and to increasingly invest in developing their own foreign policy expertise (1994, pp. 28–29).
Recent work by Curry and Lee (2020) takes a somewhat different long-term view demonstrating that the sheer volume of pages of legislation enacted in recent congresses has been relatively constant since the 1980s. They argue that policy outcomes over the last several decades have not changed as much as the internal legislative processes. They also show that restrictive rules have increased and amending activity has declined considerably which is also consistent with Sinclair’s work and suggests that party leaders enjoy greater influence over the legislative process and the rank-and-file members have fewer opportunities to participate in the legislative process.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was the only successful congressional override during the Trump Presidency, passing 322–87 in the House and 81–13 in the Senate. The NDAA has historically passed with bipartisan coalitions for the last 60 years. The NDAA, like its predecessors, contained a bonanza of popular provisions such as 3% military pay raise, new weapons systems, and military construction projects. President trump vetoed the legislation claiming that it failed to limit giant social media companies that were biased against him and he also opposed language that would rename military bases that honor Confederate leaders (AP Jan 1, 2021).
The Lugar Center methodology for oversight hearing scores for each committee are calculated from a point system taken on three possible values for hearings conducted in eight possible categories of hearings including agency conduct, private sector oversight, policy, legislative, closed, nominations, fact finding, and field. The overall oversight hearing “grade” is generated for every committee for every Congress in the data set. Grades range from As (90–100) to F (59-below) and include pluses and minuses. Each committee’s grade is based on the points Achieved from that committee’s highest performance over the six Congresses. More detailed description of the point and oversight hearing grading system can be found on the Lugar Center site, https://oversight-index.thelugarcenter.org/faq/methodology/.
The prestige committees for the House include Appropriations, Ways & Means, Budget, and Rules. Senate prestige committees include Appropriations, Finance, Budget, Foreign Relations, and Armed Services. Major Policy committees in the House include Financial Services, Education & Workforce, Energy & Commerce, Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, and Oversight. The policy committees for Senate were Homeland Security, Judiciary, HELP, and Small Business. Finally, Agriculture, Armed Services, Natural Resources, Transportation, Small Business, Science, VA, and Homeland Security were coded as House constituency committees. Senate constituency committees included Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, and Environment & Public Works.
This result is also consistent with Fowler (2015). She finds the decline in oversight greater for Senate Foreign Relations as compared to Senate Armed Services. Senate Armed Services demonstrated penchant toward budget hearings and routine program administration which illustrates its bias toward responding to narrow organized interests in the defense establishment.
We know, and are uncomfortable about how polemical this argument may sound. However: (1) the data supports the viewpoint, and (2) while we are both Democrats we are troubled by actions of Democratic presidents that run afoul of the Madisonian framework, such as Clinton’s moves on Cuba after Helms-Burton or Obama’s OLC’s contorted view of the applicability of reporting under the War Powers Act when flying “over” hostilities in Libya. While we do not see these acts as equal and on balance to actions taken under Bush (43) and Trump, and reject the argument that both sides do it equally, nevertheless the movement away from shared governance in foreign affairs is clear and alarming, in our view.
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Marshall, B.W., Haney, P.J. The impact of party conflict on executive ascendancy and congressional abdication in US foreign policy. Int Polit 59, 661–686 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00326-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00326-z