Existing narratives of the effects of partisan polarization in Congress on foreign policy issues are too simplistic (original) (raw)
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Partisan polarization and US foreign policy: Is the centre dead or holding?
International Politics, 2016
Scholars generally agree that most congressional decision-making behaviour has become characterized by partisan polarization. One area to which this consensus does not extend, however, is decision-making on foreign and national security issues. While a majority of scholars believe congressional foreign policy voting is now polarized, others insist that bipartisanship remains the norm. Examining roll-call votes in the House of Representatives from 1970 to 2012, this paper brings three new elements to bear on the dispute. Using a more comprehensive range of indicators, we reexamine the longitudinal data previously presented by scholars; we add an analysis of the roll-call data for the 2004-2013 period, and we utilize a static measure of polarization. Our analysis of the data reveals a cyclical trend of increasing and decreasing polarization and we conclude that it is too simplistic to characterize congressional voting on foreign and national security issues since 1970 as either partisan or bipartisan.
International Politics , 2021
To what extent are U.S. elected officials polarized on foreign policy? And how do patterns of polarization and bipartisanship differ across policy areas? Using an original data set of nearly 3000 important congressional votes since the end of the Cold War, we find that severe polarization remains the exception rather than the norm in U.S. foreign policy debates and that the U.S. Congress is still less polarized on international than on domestic issues. We also show that foreign policy bipartisanship regularly takes several forms, including bipartisan agreement in support of the president's policies, cross-partisan coalitions, and even bipartisan opposition to the president's policies. Collectively, our findings provide a more nuanced portrait of the politics of U.S. foreign policy than many recent accounts, point to persistent differences in the political alignments associated with different policy areas, and highlight the importance of conceiving of polarization and bipartisanship as more than binary categories.
Polarization and US foreign policy: key debates and new findings
International Politics, 2022
Polarization in the USA has been on the rise for several decades. In this context, few observers expect politics today to stop “at the water’s edge,” as the old cliché goes. But key questions about the relationship between polarization and US foreign policy remain to be fully answered. To what extent are American ideas about foreign policy now polarized along partisan lines? How is polarization changing the foreign policy behavior of the US Congress and President? And how is polarization altering the effectiveness of US foreign policy and influencing America’s role in the world? In this introductory article to our special issue “Domestic Polarization and US Foreign Policy: Ideas, Institutions, and Policy Implications,” we provide an overview of key debates and existing knowledge about these questions, highlight important new findings from the contributions to the special issue, and suggest avenues for further research on this increasingly important topic.
Division at the Water’s Edge: The Polarization of Foreign Policy
American Politics Research, 2017
Severe party conflict, not a high-minded suspension of politics, now prevails “at the water’s edge.” Democrats and Republicans fight pitched battles over foreign affairs. But are the two parties polarized in their substantive preferences on foreign policy, or mainly jockeying for partisan advantage? Are they polarized on foreign policy less sharply than on domestic policy? What are the sources of party polarization over foreign policy? Using a new measure of senatorial foreign-policy preferences from 1945-2010, we explore party polarization over foreign policy. We find that foreign-policy preferences have had varying relationships with party politics and general ideology. Since the 1960s, however, the parties have become increasingly polarized on foreign policy. Using a multilevel analysis, we show that foreign-policy polarization has developed in response to partisan electoral rivalry, foreign-policy events, and general ideological polarization. The analysis indicates an increasing...
The Onward March of (Asymmetric) Partisan Polarisation in the Contemporary Congress
Issues in American Politics edited by John W. Dumbrell. New York and London: Routledge, 2013
For decades now, congressional parties have been the most significant political organisations on Capitol Hill as class and cultural issues have produced increasingly sharp ideological divisions between Democrats and Republicans engendering congressional parties that are cohesive and ideologically polarised parties to an extent that would have been unknown to members of the Congress in the mid-twentieth century and to the framers of the US Constitution in the late eighteenth century. As we have moved into the second decade of the twenty-first century, both partisanship and partisan polarisation in the Congress have strengthened even further from 10 or 20 years ago, at the same time that American voters care neither for the Congress as an institution nor its parties. Polarisation, however, has not been symmetric: For, typically ignored in many journalistic accounts, congressional Republicans have moved much more sharply to the right than have congressional Democrats to the left, never more so than since the inauguration of President Obama in 2009. There is no shortage of examples of the effects of asymmetric partisan polarisation on contemporary policymaking in Washington, most notably, over the debt increase in late 2011. This episode also demonstrates the level of political uncertainty that polarisation engenders: policy outcomes in each chamber have necessarily become much more volatile while the probability of congressional-presidential agreement in writing major legislation decreases under conditions of split-party government, whereas it increases significantly. This pattern of policymaking is a far cry from the naïve anti-party expectations of the US Constitution’s framers; and, apparently, not what most Americans want.
Foreign Policy and Ideological Voting in the U.S. Senate
Southeastern Political Review, 2008
This article examines the dimensional structure of roll-call voting in the Senate. Using an unfolding analysis based on interest group ratings, a single ideological dimension is found. The robustness of this dimension is explored by examining how well it explains a series of roll-call votes on foreign policy issues. As anticipated, the ideological dimension predicts these votes better than do other baseline models. This provides strong support for unidimensional theories of congressional voting behavior. Additionally, it suggests that while foreign policy may be substantively diflerent from domestic policy, it is evaluated on the basis of a common ideological dimension.
Southeastern Political Review, 2008
Some researchers claim that diflerent issues are dominated by direrent congressional voting patterns. Others argue that a single ideological dimension is sufjicient to characterize votes on most issues. This analysis compares foreign and domestic policy votes in the U.S. Senate. The results show that the determinants of Senate voting behavior are very similar for both foreign and domestic policy issues. Ideology has strong direct and indirect efects, constituent influence plays a secondary, more indirect role, and partisanship is a minor influence for issues of domestic policy o n b Overall, the expectations of the unidimensional, ideological model of congressional behavior are borne out, while pluralist explanations receive little support. southeastern Political Review Volume 28 NO. 1
The Multiple Forms of Bipartisanship: Political Alignments in US Foreign Policy
Social Science Research Council , 2018
Jordan Tama, an awardee of a Negotiating Agreement in Congress grant (a component of the SSRC’s Anxieties of Democracy program) identifies an intriguing anomaly: greater bipartisanship in the US Congress on foreign policy than domestic issues. Tama examines the different forms this aisle-crossing may take—sometimes in broad opposition to the president’s policy preferences, and at other times when intraparty factions unite across party lines. He sees ideology, interest group politics, and institutional incentives as the key sources for foreign policy bipartisanship, and concludes with how these dynamics are playing out in the Trump administration.
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2015
Partisan disputes among US policymakers seem to be growing by the week, whether on negotiations with Iran, immigration reform, or climate change. To what extent are these divisions unique to foreign policy leaders? How much do they also reflect polarization among the American public? To examine these questions, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs revived its tradition of conducting tandem surveys of the US public and foreign policy opinion leaders in its May–July 2014 survey. Across party lines, the results reveal that the US public and leaders largely agree on the general direction of US foreign policy. But entrenched partisan mindsets and polarization present significant challenges to addressing today’s major foreign policy issues. The results underscore several common foreign policy goals across party lines that are bound to get lost once the divisive 2016 campaign begins. Policymakers should set a higher bar and advance shared priorities while working to bridge their differences.
The Dynamics of Partisan Conflict on Congressional Approval
American Journal of Political Science, 2009
Partisan divisions in American politics have been increasing since the 1970s following a period where scholars thought parties were in decline. This polarization is observed most frequently within the debates and deliberation across issues within Congress. Given that most studies of public opinion place the behavior of elites at the center of public attitudes, surprisingly little research examines the effect of partisan conflict on the mass public. This research examines quarterly congressional approval data from 1974 to 2000 to determine the consequences, if any, of party conflict on the dynamics of congressional approval. The findings indicate that overtime changes in partisan conflict within Congress have a direct and lasting effect on how citizens think about Congress.