Ralph G. Carter

Acting on the Hill: Congressional Assertiveness in U.S. Foreign Policy

A controversy has developed in recent years pitting those who see a resurgent Congress in U.S. foreign policy against those who argue that Congress remains largely acquiescent and uninvolved. This article addresses the disagreement, using a database of congressional foreign policy activity from 1946 to 1997 to weigh the competing claims. Our results show that congressional foreign policy activity has declined over the post-World War II era while congressional foreign policy assertiveness, relative to the administrations requests, has increased during this same period. Congress is thus less active but more assertive. Based on these results, we offer a two-dimensional model of congressional foreign policy behavior that better reflects the variety of congressional roles in U.S. foreign policy.

Senate Defense Budgeting, 1981-1988 The Impacts of Ideology, Party, and Constituency Benefit on the Decision to Support the President

Studying Senate roll call votes during the Reagan administration sheds light on the interaction of party, ideology, and local economic benefit as explanatory factors in a senators decision to support the presidents position on defense spending issues. Party and ideology are found to be the most important of these three, but their effects change when moving from consideration of major procurement issues to those involving the use, training, and readiness of the nations military. Further, incorporating issue-based differences and indirect effects into the analysis suggests the effects of local economic benefit are not as inconsequential as some recent studies have argued. In summary, these findings focus attention on the role played by elections and the circumstances in which presidential leadership may be most effective on defense spending issues.

Understanding congressional foreign policy innovators: Mapping entrepreneurs and their strategies

Abstract Since World War II, a small group of assertive MCs have chosen to lead on foreign policy issues about which they care, without waiting on the administration to take action. Significant foreign policy innovation has been the result. From the coldest days of the Cold War to the changed circumstances after 9/11, important congressional initiatives attributable to a few key individuals can be found. Drawing on an original quantitative dataset of post-World War II congressional foreign policy activity, interviews with members and their staffs, and primary and secondary research, this paper: (a) discusses the characteristics and impact of these policymakers; (b) develops categories of entrepreneurs, drawn from issues to which entrepreneurs have devoted their attention; and (c) derives strategies of entrepreneurship drawn from the activities and avenues utilized by the entrepreneurs.

Leadership at Risk: The Perils of Unilateralism

public relations approaches may be helpful, but they can only go so far. The real problem lies in U.S. unilateralist policies, the list of which is quite long. U.S. rejections of policies endorsed by the rest of the international community include the Ottawa Convention banning land mines, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the verification protocol for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, and the new International Criminal Court. The current Bush Administration went further to ‘nullify’ the prior U.S. signature on the International Criminal Court Treaty, an unprecedented step that raises troubling questions about other prior U.S. commitments. In multiple international venues, the administration continues to advance the exception of U.S. forces from any future prosecution before the ICC, threatening the withdrawal of U.S. funding for global peacekeeping operations if its demands are not met. In bilateral talks, the administration has reportedly threatened to suspend military aid to allies unless they agree to exempt U.S. forces from ICC prosecution. Other illustrations of unilateralist behavior abound. For over a decade, the United States has withheld either its UN dues payments, or payments on its arrearages, until the UN satisfied U.S. concerns. The United States recently forced the ouster of the executivedirector of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, because he was not anti-Iraqi enough to satisfy the Bush Administration. In a move surely to be seen as hypocritical, in 2001 the Bush Administration called on the World Bank to invest more money in education in the developing world but then, in 2002, chose not to provide any funds for the World Bank’s education projects. At the 2002 UN General Assembly special session on children, the U.S. delegation insisted upon (and got) a provision exempting the United States from any requirement barring the imposition of the death penalty or life imprisonment for those under the age of 18. Only the United States and Somalia have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the United States is the only advanced industrialized state not to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. U.S. opposition alone killed a proposed UN convention to limit global trafficking in small arms. Finally, according to one summary, over the past decade the United States has either threatened or imposed unilateral economic sanctions on 35 countries representing over 40% of the global population (Maynes 1998).

Energy Security Under Conditions of Uncertainty: Simulating a Comparative Bureaucratic Politics Approach

For those who must import oil to maintain their economies and quality of life, any disruption in the delivery of imported oil is a highly threatening prospect. How would U.S. policymakers react to such a threat in the contemporary era? We examine the potential policymaking roles and impacts of bureaucratic actors operating at the intersection of energy and security issues. To do so, we explore a comparative approach using an original simulation that envisions an energy supply “crisis” in the United States due to events in a hypothetical state somewhat inspired by Hugo Chavezs Venezuela. The simulation is run at three very different universities in three different courses, yet the results are surprisingly similar. Despite the obvious security implications of an oil shortage during a time of war, we find more engaged roles for those representing nonmilitary bureaucracies, a greater reliance on diplomatic and economic tools to respond to the crisis, less reliance on military policy instruments than might have been the case in the past, and a concern for tempering responses until more is known.

Promoting democracy in Latin America: foreign policy change and US democracy assistance, 1975–2010

Abstract Since the Cold War the USA has articulated and implemented explicit strategies of democracy promotion. One interesting target of such efforts is Latin America, in part because of the region’s geographic proximity to the USA and of the mixed record of US support for democracy there. This paper examines the impact of the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 episode on the nature, purposes, targets and consequences of US democracy assistance to Latin America. Examining democracy aid allocations, social and political factors and other variables, it traces changes in aid strategies, purposes and recipients generated by these paradigm shifts, and assesses the impact of such assistance on the politics of the region. It concludes with implications of these findings for US democracy promotion policies.

From Cold War to Arab Spring: mapping the effects of paradigm shifts on the nature and dynamics of US democracy assistance to the Middle East and North Africa

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has articulated and implemented explicit strategies of democracy promotion by providing assistance to governments, political parties, and other non-governmental groups and organizations all over the world. One particularly challenging region has been the Middle East and North Africa, where democratic development and democracy aid opportunities have been limited and constrained by a variety of factors related to social, economic, and political characteristics of the region and policy priorities of the United States. This article examines the impact of two major paradigm shifts – the end of the Cold War (1989) and the 9/11 episode (2001) – on the nature, purposes, and consequences of US democracy assistance to the Middle East. Examining democracy aid allocations, social, democratic and political factors in the region, and other variables, the analysis traces the shifts in aid strategies, purposes, and recipients generated by these paradigm shifts and assesses the impact of such assistance on the politics of the region. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for US democracy promotion policies and the impact of the Arab Spring events as a potential third break point.

Congressional Trade Politics, 1985-1995

The foreign trade literature typically sees Congress abdicating its policymaking role to the executive. In addition to a presidential model of policymaking, three other models are identified (the joint participation, congressional, and bureaucratic models) and Congresss significant post-cold war foreign trade policymaking across these models is examined. Policy outputs are also categorized, as instances of congressional victories, presidential victories, partial victories for each side, and instances of policy agreement. The findings indicate that Congress plays an active policymaking role in 78 percent of the cases and gets part or all of its policy desires enacted in 84 percent of the cases. Thus the congressional role in post-cold war foreign trade policy-making seems substantially more significant than much of the literature suggests. Further, Congress in this period seems particularly responsive to bipartisan and interest group pressures, but the presence of presidential lobbying shows some variance...