domestic constraints on the president regarding foreign policy

8/10/2019 Domestic Constraints on the President regarding Foreign Policy

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POLSC 274: American Foreign PolicyJason BrownProfessor Zachary ShirkeyNovember 17, 2014

Paper #2

Whether domestic or abroad, the President of the United States has had an

increasingly challenging role in directing American foreign policy. This fact has in

part been due to the increasingly nuanced issues of modern international politics,

and (especially since the Cold War) a lack of a uniform American agenda on foreign

policy. However, it has also been due to the many factors that serve as constraints

on the President’s abilities. Four of the most important constraints are Congress, the

media and public opinion, influential interest groups, and the Supreme Court.

Congress has been granted a long list of powers regarding foreign policy

from Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, with the presumption likely being that a

healthy level of cooperation with the executive branch would arise from it. The

legislative and executive branches of the United States were given powers that

almost rely on each other, and in times where the United States’ agenda on foreign

policy is clear or the majority of Congress’ opinion on an issue is similar to that of

the President, this idea works easily. However, upon times of disagreement between

the President and Congress, the checks of power available to the latter quickly

become evident. Some of the major constraints available to Congress when limiting

presidential authority include their ability to declare war, financial power or “Power

of the Purse” , their ability to ratify treaties, and their ability to confirm

appointments made by the President.



The financial authority of Congress over the United States has served as a

major constraint over the goals of Presidents, especially in times of domestic

political conflict. As they are granted the power of providing the funds for any

exploit of the United States in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution, and

the power to make appropriations for money drawn from the treasury in Article I,

Section 9, Clause 7, Congress holds most of the power in terms of military spending.

As a result, the President cannot actually send troops overseas without

Congressional approval, although a few provisions have been put into place since to

further interpret that rule and expand executive power. During World War II, The

War Powers Acts of 1941 and 1942 gave the President much more power to quickly

mobilize troops and organize the military in times of urgent importance. These acts

quickly cut the red tape that President Franklin D. Roosevelt would have had to go

through by moving through Congress, but it was agreed upon by all that it was

necessary and Congress did ultimately wind up officially declaring war on the Axis.

However, since then, Presidents have tried to use the more lenient

restrictions available to mobilize troops for less unanimously agreed upon issues,

which Congress has then checked by exercising their financial power. When Gerald

Ford attempted to intervene using only his executive power during the Angolan Civil

War of 1976, he needed additional funding to continue. However, much of Congress

did not approve of the bill in the first place, and denied it, forcing the troops to come

back home after only 45 days. 1

1 Mieczkowski, Yanek. Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s . University Pressof Kentucky, 2005.



The Senate’s abilities to ratify treaties and confirm appointments are also

used as tools for constraining executive authority. One example of the Senate using

their ability to ratify treaties to check the President was at the end of World War I.

Because Woodrow Wilson almost refused to involve Congress in discussions with

the winning European powers, they refused to allow the United States to join the

League of Nations, despite the fact that Woodrow Wilson had a major part in

developing it. 2 An example of their use of power to confirm appointments was found

in President Barack Obama’s appointment for Secretary of Defense in 2013. The

Republican Senate filibustered the appointment of former Republican senator Chuck

Hagel, and consequently made the process much longer than it normally is. This had

been one of the first times a Presidential appointment had been filibustered, and

while the Republicans had defended it an attempt to “[force] the confirmation

process to be more deliberative” 3, many critics suggested that it was a purely

political move to inconvenience the President.

As presidents ultimately have to work with the approval of the public to

remain in office with a cooperative session of Congress, public opinion can be a

major influence on the behavior of presidents. It’s a common misconception that

Americans have limited interest in foreign policy, but they actually have a variety of

developed opinions on international issues. In What Americans Really Think about

2 Hamilton, Lee H. A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President andCongress. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002. Page 20.3 Peters, Jeremy W. “Hagel Prevails in Senate After Bruising Bout With G.O.P.” TheNew York Times , February 26, 2013, sec. U.S. / Politics.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/us/politics/hagel-filibuster-defense-senate-confirmation.html.



U.S. Foreign Policy, Daniel Yankelovich notes that the issues of 2005 wer e “reaching

a ‘tipping point’: [a] moment at which large swaths of the public begin to demand

that the government address their concerns.” 4 In 2005, amidst the wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan, immigration policy issues, and job outsourcing, public opinion became

polarized in ways that were ultimately bipartisan. President George W. Bush had

been reelected at the time of Ya nkelovitch’s article, and likely didn’t budge on his

stance on contentious international problems because he expected to have the

unwavering support of a large Republican base. However, during the 2006 United

States midterm elections, both the House and Senate won Democratic majorities,

and in the 2008 presidential election resulted in the Democratic win of President

Barack Obama as well. These victories came from public frustration with President

Bush from both parties, and the congressional takeover form the democrats lead to

multiple veto overrides in areas such as environmentalism and healthcare. 5

It ’s no secret that many ar eas of the Media are biased, but often times they

will use their influence over uninformed viewers and readers to shape ideas that

wouldn’t have been formed otherwise . They, as well as Congress, can use hot-button

politicized domestic issues to sway the public in one direction that ultimately

shapes their opinions on foreign issues. This influence of public opinion in turn

affects major elections, which can constrain presidential actions. Lee Hamilton notes

4 Yankelovich, Daniel. “Poll Positions: What Americans Really Think About U.S.Foreign Policy.” Foreign Affairs 84, no. 5 (September 1, 2005): 2 –16.doi:10.2307/20031701.5 Doering, Christopher. “Bush Sees First Veto Override in Water Bill.” Reuters .November 8, 2007. http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/11/08/us-congress-veto-idUSWBT00789620071108.



one example of Congress doing this in the 1990s, where members likened increased

UN funding to a focus on abortion, despite the fact that there was no actual

connection between the two. 6 In recent times, the politically polarized media groups

have spun the foreign policy of the President in different directions by interpreting

events in ways that reflect their views. One example of this is found in Oliver Willis’

article Conservative Media Blames Rise of Islamic State on Long Debunked Claim That

Obama “Missed” Intelligence Briefings . Pundits on Fox News repeatedly tried to

connect the rise of terror group ISIS/ISIL to presidential oversight by saying that

President Obama failed to attend important intelligence briefings, despite the fact

that this idea had been disproven years prior by the Washington Post. 7 The writers

on Fox, Willis argues, likely knew this already, but continued to argue the disproven

claim in order to sway citizens who w ouldn’t be inclined to look further into the

issue.

As international politics affect more and more Americans, interest groups

that would normally stay domestic have started working to influence executive

foreign policy as well. Interest groups with high involvement in foreign policy

include business and environmental organizations, but also ethnic and religious

groups. The increasing sophistication of interest group strategy in the United States

has now lead to their influence going past the legislative branch, where it has always

6 Hamilton, Lee H. A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President andCongress. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002. Page 14 7 “Conservative Media Blames Rise of Islamic State On Long Debunked Claim ThatObama ‘Missed’ Intelligence Briefings.” Media Matters for America . AccessedNovember 18, 2014.http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/09/30/conservative-media-blames-rise-of-islamic-state/200949.



been influential, to the executive. Lee Hamilton notes that the methods of interest

groups are often dependent on the type of interest group working. Religious and

ethnic groups now tend to align themselves with other powerful groups to reach a

mutual goal. F or example, he notes, “American Jewish groups have courted and

gained the support of evangelical Christians and prominent labor organizations for

causes related to Israel… Americans with roots in India have reached out to U. S.

businesses to strengthen their support for increasing the number of immigrant visas

given to highly skilled technology workers.” 8 Foreign embassies in countries such as

Taiwan will also partner with ethnic interest groups to draft policies for

consideration of Congress, which can potentially put pressure on the President. 9

The effect of these interest groups’ advanced methods on influencing

executive foreign policy is well documented. Understanding American Government

points to the power of the African American lobby, mentioning its influence on US

involvement in Haiti and Africa, from military conflicts to environmental and public

health issues. In 1998, they successfully persuaded President Bill Clinton to take a

twelve-day trip to six African nations, which was the most extensive African trip by

a US President. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also partnered with several

women’s rights groups under President Bush, effectively maintaining an emphasis

on women’s rights internationally. 10

8 Hamilton, Lee H. A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President andCongress. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002. Page 20.9 ibid 10 Welch, Susan, John Gruhl, John Comer, and Susan Rigdon. Understanding AmericanGovernment . Cengage Learning, 2009.



The Supreme Court may not have any Constitutional powers relating to

foreign policy, but their abilities to check the president through judicial hearings

have proven to be a constraint. In Noah Feldman’s New York Times Article When

Judges Make Foreign Policy, he begins by stating, “In a globaliz ed, Post-9/11 age,

decisions made by the Supreme Court are increasingly shaping America’s

international relations.” 11 Feldman argues that each era of the Supreme Court has

provided answers for important American questions that were subject to

contentious debates, and that the question of how the United States should conduct

foreign policy has become more important than ever as the issues have become

more complex. Supreme Court serves as a group that analyzes these issues in the

form of court cases, using only the Constitution as an arbitrary third party to direct a

government without a clear foreign policy agenda. Feldman references case

Boumediene v. Bush to defend this claim. In Boumediene v. Bush , terror-suspect

detainees were held in Guantanamo Bay, which was considered to be an

international law-free zone for the United States by President Bush. Associate

Justice Anthony Kennedy determined that despite the fact that a similar process had

been done for German WWII war criminals, which set a precedent for holding

detainees unconstitutionally, Guantanamo is in fact a part of the United States and

would therefore be subject to the Constitution. This ruling had a major effect on the

behavior of the executive regarding Guantanamo, and serves as an example of their

constraint over the President.

11 Feldman, Noah. “When Judges Make Foreign Policy.” The New York Times ,September 28, 2008, sec. Magazine.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/magazine/28law-t.html.



Congress, the media, public opinion, interest groups, and the Supreme Court

all influence the President domestically in ways that other groups abroad cannot.

Because of the close, intertwining relationships that each group has both with the

President and each other, a balance of power is forged, which shifts depending on

the political skill of each. The media can directly influence public opinion, which,

along with interest groups, influence elections. Congress, the body of government

that deals most often with the people can have a considerable amount of control

over the President. At the same time, these groups can directly deal with the

President, and the Supreme Court makes powerful judgments on the policies and

decisions that arise from the dynamic.

domestic constraints on the president regarding foreign policy

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