Beyond the Water's Edge

📖 The Scoop

The common wisdom about the struggle for foreign policy power between the US Congress and President is that the making and conduct of foreign policy are likely to be dominated by the Executive. A review of the literature in this field reveals that this wisdom is largely based on historical studies on issues like declaring war, ratifying treaties or recognising foreign governments. Many other foreign policy issues such as foreign economic policy and human rights policy are much understudied. Available studies also show more interest in documenting Congress' role in certain policies with less attention to the internal dynamics of how Congress came to behave as it did. Classical political science theories on the behaviour of Congress in policy making identify one focal point as the basis of analysis (interest groups, ideology, partisanship, constituency, committee, public opinion, media, or institutional constraints). The thesis proceeds from the fairly obvious presumption that foreign policy making is a complex process which cannot be fully explained by any single theory. It therefore adopts a more expansive approach and pays special attention to three factors which might loosely be termed structural factors: partisanship, constituency and committee. This thesis concerns itself primarily with a comparative evaluation of these three factors but concludes with some comment on the broader context which includes other factors, such as ideology, interest groups and Presidential leadership. These other factors are no less important than the three structural factors. The thesis takes as case studies the issues of China's most-favoured-nation (MFN) trade status and US policy towards Taiwan under two administrations -that of George Bush and the first Clinton Administration. This period (1989-1996) was not only a time of considerable change in the global strategic environment but also a time of instability in US-China relations. The thesis shows that at a theoretical level, Congressional behaviour can be best explained if it is understood as the sum of a variety of often incongruent actions and compromises, each one of which might have its roots in one or other of the motivations identified by classical political science theories. Essentially, a theoretical explanation of Congressional behaviour must take into account the fact that Congressional decision making involves 535 individual members and a large number of committees. This thesis found that while partisanship is generally more influential in shaping Congressional intervention in foreign policy, this is only true when interests of constituency are not heavily involved. As for committees, although their actions are central to Congressional outcomes, those actions are largely determined by partisanship and constituency.

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