David Leyton-Brown

The Role of Congress in the Making of Foreign Policy

The constitution of the United States assigns power over foreign policy to both the legislative branch (congress) and the executive branch (the president). That separation, or sharing, of powers has led to differing views on the ability and desirability of congress to participate in making foreign policy. The pattern of legislativeexecutive relations is long and complex, with successive periods of congressional and presidential dominance. During the first twentyfive years after World War n, the congressional role in foreign policy progressed through four relatively distinct phases described as accommodation, antagonism, acquiescence, and ambiguity,1 but the president generally took the leading role throughout the period. Then in the 1970s, largely because of mounting dissatisfaction with the executive secrecy and abuse of power associated with Vietnam and Watergate, but in part because of internal changes within the legislative branch, congress began to assert itself strongly in the foreign policy area, imposing restrictions on presidential action and initiating new policy objectives. More recently, the early 1980s have brought a seeming retreat from that assertive role, as a variety of measures have been enacted to repeal certain restrictions imposed in the previous decade and to increase presidential flexibility. The important question remaining is whether these policy reversals mark a decline in the importance of the role of congress, or whether a qualitative change in the role of congress occurred in the 1970s,

The North American Political Economy in the Global Context: An Analytical Framework

The North American political economy (with apologies to Mexico) is a shorthand reference to the political economy of CanadaUnited States relations. This term does not presume a single economic (or political) system encompassing the two countries. It merely recognizes the extensive interdependence between the two economies, and the reality that many of the economic problems encountered by one or other of the two countries are in fact the product of the same global developments.1 The fundamental purpose of this essay is to identify the reasons for and nature of the responses by the Canadian and United States governments to global economic developments, and to explore alternative responses.

Hewers of Wood: The Forest Products Sector

Forest products is a natural resource sector in which there has been intense strain between Canada and the United States, but in which the industries in both countries have been beset by a number of common difficulties originating in the global environment. Canadian and United States forest products firms are vulnerable to external influences, such as changing world prices, shifting exchange rates, and the emergence of new competitors, and to domestic difficulties as well as to developments in the bilateral trading relationship. Within this context the responses of the two governments to changing competitive circumstances have differed, and bilateral disputes have emerged.

Multinational Enterprise and the Nation-State in an Interdependent World

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the literature on international investment activity and the spread of multinational enterprise (mne) was preoccupied with questions of the effects on national and international welfare. Attention was infrequently paid to the consequences of the emergence of a new important actor in world affairs the mne for the traditional basis of political organization the nation-state. Many of those who addressed this matter simplistically assumed that the growing economic impact of the mne would translate into political power, while governments would be unable to design policies appropriate to manage and control the new reality, with the consequent diminishing of the role of the nation-state.1 More recently, others have suggested that the growth of the mne and the loss of control over domestic affairs have led governments to strive to assert that control.2