Going Global: Assessing Presidential Foreign Travel

Abstract

Since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt broke the “Ironclad Custom”—and especially following World War II—presidents have routinely traveled outside of the United States to visit other countries and meet foreign leaders and publics. Presidents are expected to engage in face-to-face diplomacy, but they must also be present and active in domestic politics. To balance these pressures, presidents need to be strategic and mindful of their limited political resources and the opportunities the political environment creates. How, then, do international and domestic political resources and opportunities affect the extent and frequency of foreign travel? To examine this question, we collected and analyzed a dataset of presidential foreign travel—number of trips, countries visited and days spent abroad—during the post-World War II period (1953–2016) and estimated the frequency of travel with a set of explanatory variables that capture U.S. foreign involvement as well as the domestic policy agenda and political incentives that affected presidents from Eisenhower to Obama. Our findings demonstrate that domestic policy and political incentives are strong determinants of presidential foreign travel.     

The role of ‘diplomatic lobbying’ in shaping US foreign policy and its effects on the Australia–US relationship

Lobbying as a form of engagement with the US Congress has long been studied from a domestic perspective. Lobbying, however, is not a practice confined to actors with domestic interests—it is also used as a form of diplomacy by many foreign governments, including Australia. Diplomatic lobbying is a vastly understudied phenomenon and its impact on US foreign relations is rarely examined. Unlike most Westminster-based democracies, the USA has two branches directly involved with foreign affairs—the Executive and Congress—each of which is important for different aspects of foreign policy development. Australia has found lobbying the US Congress to be a powerful tool for diplomatic engagement. This article looks at the role of the US Congress in foreign affairs, the effects of lobbying, and the ways in which diplomats engage with and lobby Congress. Australia’s specific lobbying efforts and their effects on the US–Australia relationship are then examined.     

Engaging China’s new foreign policy in the South Pacific

China’s declared foreign policy of ‘non-interference’ is contradicted by its actions in recent times. Beyond activities in the East and South China Seas, the involvement of China in negotiations on the Korean Peninsula, the evacuation of Chinese citizens from various crises, and the deployment of Chinese combat troops to peacekeeping missions in Africa have indicated China’s growing interests in the shape of world affairs, coinciding with a growing economic and military capacity to influence them. Much attention has been given to the potential consequences of great-power competition between the USA and China, but little focus has been given to the impact these trends may have in the outlying regions of Chinese foreign policy. One such place is Melanesia in the South Pacific—a subregion where a small influence from a Chinese perspective can have a significant impact on Pacific Island Countries. This article postulates that, over time, there is potential for the consequences of Chinese interests to lead to accidental friction, and suggests that this risk can be mitigated through increased cooperation.     

The Pendulum of Congressional Power: Agenda Change,Partisanship and the Demise of the Post-World War II Foreign Policy Consensus

Many scholars contend that Congress rarely matters in the realm of foreign policy. The source of this collective impotence is often explained by the weaknesses in congressional institutions vis-a-vis the president, as well as a general inability to respond effectively to a dynamic international political environment. We contend that the debate over congressional activism has not adequately addressed the role of agenda change. We analyze all roll call votes in the House of Representatives relating to the international affairs agenda between 1953 and 1998. We find that presidents have become significantly more likely to stake out positions on economic and trade issues as compared to other international issues. We also observe that presidential positions in the realm of foreign policy are increasingly characterized by interparty and interinstitutional conflict. While this increased conflict has dramatically decreased the president's ability to successfully pass executive priorities in foreign affairs more generally, presidential success on economic and trade issues has witnessed a significantly greater decline. We infer from these results that changes to the foreign policy issue agenda represent one important factor that has affected not only the incentives for political parties to participate actively, but also the willingness of Congress to challenge the president in the foreign policy debate.Asked one day whether it was true that the navy yard in his district was too small to accommodate the latest battleships. Henry Stimson (chair of the House Naval Affairs Committee early in the century) replied, 'That is true, and that is the reason I have always been in favor of small ships.'1Carriers have been, are and will be for the foreseeable future an absolutely essential part of our deterrence force…2John Warner, senator from Virginia, home state of Newport News Shipbuilding     

Passing Nonincremental Policy: Presidential Influence in Congress,Kennedy to Carter

This article represents an important step in understanding early, modern presidents’ strategic use of signing statements by taking a sharp focus on the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. In contrast to recent presidents who have used the instrument increasingly to challenge legislative provisions, Eisenhower's use of signing statements was rather complex—from political credit-claiming, explaining the provisions of bills to the American public, and reinforcing his views on the federal-state balance of power—to maintaining bipartisan relations on foreign policy, shaping implementation of congressional bills, and selectively criticizing Congress for overspending. The theoretical framework devotes particular attention to the interplay of contexts—electoral, institutional, and economic—on Eisenhower's use of signing statements by policy area across his two terms.     

The Right Tool for the Job: The Canalization of Presidential Policy Attention by Policy Instrument

This article investigates how presidential policy attention is allocated across policy tools and whether there is a channeling of tool use by policy area. I also examine whether there is evidence of disproportionate information processing within presidential policy attention allocation and whether it is common across presidential policy tools. Presidential messages, hearings on administrations' legislative proposals, amicus briefs, and executive orders are employed to capture presidential policy tools. The allocation of attention via these four instruments is examined from 1957–2007 in the policy areas of defense and foreign affairs, macroeconomics, banking and commerce, civil rights, law and crime, and labor and immigration. I find that there is a canalization of presidential policy attention by instrument, and that the opportunity structure of policy tools shapes attention allocation. Additionally, I find evidence for punctuated equilibrium theory in the allocation of presidential policy attention via these four tools. When presidents do shift their attention to an issue area, they often attack the issue with some coordination of their policy instruments.     

新中国的革命外交思想与实践

毛泽东主导下的新中国外交,最大的特色,就是它的革命性。革命总是有其强大的惯性。新中国既然诞生于毛泽东领导的阶级革命之中,这一阶级革命的动力、观念、经验自然也就会进一步影响到新中国的内政与外交。阶级斗争及其统战经验对新中国外交政策制定的影响、新中国内政对它的外交的影响,以及传统的革命理念、革命经验与现代外交之间,不可避免地发生种种?格与冲突。它旨在说明了毛时代的外交为什么会一直保持着很强的革命色彩,而且会越来越激进,以至于发展到"文革"初期那种四面树敌的严重地步。     

Iran's Shortsighted Policies in Iraq: Between Inflaming and Containing of Radical Sunni Islam: 2003–2015

The main goal of the 2003 war with Iraq of the coalition forces led by the United States was to topple Saddam Hussein's regime and establish a new political system that would adopt democratic practices. Iran, a country that deemed Saddam's regime to be a threat, considered this war to be very helpful in many ways — first because it put an end to Clinton's “dual containment” approach and would thus help Iran to become a regional superpower at Iraq's expense. Second, a war with Iraq could put an end to the decades of oppression of the Shi'a community in Iraq. This article argues that Iran's involvement in Iraq's internal affairs created chaos in Iraq and contributed to the sectarian conflict against Sunni terror groups, notably the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known by the Arabic name Daesh, a terror group with the most extreme form of Sunni Radical Islam ever known. The sectarian conflict that resulted from the above is now taking place between the Sunnis and the Shi'a of both Persian and Arab backgrounds and this clash could not have become as radical as it is without Iran's aggressive foreign policy. It should, however, be noted that Iran is not the sole player in the country and therefore its part in inflaming sectarian conflicts should be viewed through a realistic prism that allows other forces — domestic and foreign — to be seen as having influenced the events for their benefit.     

杰斐逊的联邦制思想与“国内改进”政策的延滞

对杰斐逊而言,联邦制意味着联邦政府和各州政府共同分享国家主权,其中,联邦政府享有管理对外事务(包括国际和州际事务)的权力,而各州政府则享有管理对内事务的权力。他主张对宪法进行严格解释,强调联邦政府的权力严格地限于宪法中所列举的范围。在杰斐逊执政时期,他赞同联邦政府进行国内改进(即交通建设),但是,由于宪法并没有明确授予联邦政府进行国内改进的权力,他强调必须通过一项宪法修正案,明确授予联邦政府有关权力,其目的在于维护他关于联邦制的一贯主张,维护联邦政府和各州政府之间的权力划分。主要由于杰斐逊的联邦制思想的阻碍,联邦政府的国内改进政策始终延滞不前。     

The President and the Public: Inaugural Addresses in American History

This article examines presidential inaugural addresses to gain a perspective on the changing relationship between the people and the presidency throughout American political history. The analysis suggests three distinct models of inaugural address—constitutional, party, and plebiscitary—each articulating a different understanding of presidential leadership and the relationship between the presidency and the people. The constitutional presidents see themselves largely as restrained, constitutional officers with a minimal relationship to the people. The party model yields a role for the president which is more tied to the people's will, especially as expressed through party. Even though tied more strongly to the public, party presidents recognize constitutional limits on their roles and powers. Plebiscitary presidents often eschew party affiliation and the guise of constrained constitutional officer, and cast themselves as engines of the American political system fully tied to public opinion. Plebiscitary presidents often make few references to other political actors or to the Constitution. Beyond helping us to better understand the contours of American political development, this analysis challenges the prevalent assumption in studies of the presidency that nineteenth-century presidents were not popular or “public” leaders.     

Neo-Colonialism Reconsidered: A Case Study of East Africa in the 1960s and 1970s

A former major base of British colonialism, East Africa, has served as one of the testing grounds for what has been referred to as neo-colonialism. According to Kwame Nkrumah, neo-colonialism indicates that although ‘in theory’, a colony attains independence, ‘[i]n reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside’ (Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. London: Panaf Books, 2004 [1965]). This article challenges this image of neo-colonialism. Based on British documents of the late 1960s and early 1970s, most of which have become available to the public only in the last decade, and sources in East African libraries, it casts new light on British external relations with East Africa in the heady days of independence. These documents demonstrate that the new states of East Africa enjoyed a substantial degree of autonomy, that Britain's development aid was inconsistent and that Britain's involvement in the affairs of its former colonies was reluctant. These accounts reveal that the impact of British policy on newly independent states was actually limited, and thus the nature of Britain's relationship with its ex-colonies and the discourse of neo-colonialism are debatable.     

二战前后英国工党外交政策的转变

第二次世界大战前后,由于国际格局的变迁,英国工党的外交政策发生了很大变化。理想主义是战前工党外交政策的主调,在国际问题的处理上它信奉集体安全政策,主张发挥国际联盟的作用,反对重整军备。经过第二次世界大战,工党逐渐接受了丘吉尔战时政府的现实主义外交原则,战后初期工党执政后,在外交政策方面摒弃了过去的理想主义,把现实的国家利益作为外交政策的重点。工党政府推动美国参加欧洲防务,借助美国的力量建立起欧洲均势,满足了国家安全的现实需要。在非殖民化问题上,工党政府同样从现实主义出发,撤出了印度和巴勒斯坦。从战前的理想主义到战后的现实主义,工党外交理念的变化在某种程度上反映了这一时期英国外交的演变过程。     

Brazil as an intermediate state and regional power: action, choice and responsibilities

Since the early years of the twentieth century, Brazil's major foreign policy aspiration has been to achieve international recognition based upon the belief that it should assume its 'natural' role as a 'big country' in world affairs. Although the bases for an autonomous foreign policy have become more restricted in the post-Cold War period, Brazil still seeks to preserve an independent voice within the international community and a certain level of independent capacity to determine its actions. In addition, the country has demonstrated a clear intention of wanting to expand the roles that it plays and the responsibilities that it assumes in regional politics, in Third World agendas and in multilateral institutions. As democracy deepens its roots within the country, Brazil has attempted to link an increasingly activist stance in world affairs with political support at home based upon a more active partisan involvement in foreign policy. In this context, the present government's fight against poverty and unequal income distribution at home and its assertive and activist foreign policy can be viewed as two sides of the same coin. In this article the authors provide an overview of the core features of Brazilian foreign policy, focusing upon four aspects: (i) the instrumental nature of Brazilian foreign policy and its close relationship with the country's economic and development objectives; (ii) the commitment of Brazil to multilateralism; (iii) the growing importance for Brazil of regional politics and security; and (iv) the recent evolution of Brazil's relations with the United States. The conclusion reviews the main challenges facing Brazil and the difficulty of matching increased ambition with concrete results.     

A New Model of Executive Power: A Montesquieuan Explanation of the Obama Presidency

Abstract

The perennial concern over executive overreach continues well into Obama's presidency, leading many to wonder if the “unitary executive” is here to stay. Discussions of executive war powers focus on three models. The Hamiltonian perspective gives presidents the lead position in foreign affairs; the second model, following Madison, presents Congress as the leader when initiating hostilities. Finally, Jeffersonians present emergency powers as extra-legal, giving presidents a sphere of actions that cannot be contained within constitutional discussions. Problematically, current scholarship implicitly or explicitly grounds these explanations in Locke's political philosophy. This occurs despite a dearth of references to Locke during the Constitutional Convention and infrequent references to his thought during early debates over executive-congressional divisions of war powers. Comparatively, all of these seminal American figures frequently mention Montesquieu, often fighting over the specifics of his theory. While scholars widely acknowledge this influence, they rarely mention him during discussions of war powers or the nature of executive power in general. This article examines the Montesquieuan understanding of executive power and shows how this model represents a viable alternative to the Lockean one. Most importantly, examining the executive from a Montesquieuan perspective provides solutions to current problems that the Lockean perspective does not.     

Economic Protectorate in Britain’s Informal Empire: The Trucial Coast during the Second World War

This article examines the economic and political impact of the Second World War upon a small outpost of Britain’s informal empire. It analyses the multiple ways in which the economy, trade and governance of the Trucial Coast were disrupted, disturbed and challenged by the exceptional circumstances of the war. In response to these circumstances, a variety of emergency arrangements were introduced, resulting in an unprecedented degree of involvement of outsiders and foreign agencies in the management of the local economy. The transformation of Britain’s traditional policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of the Trucial Coast is traced back to the exigencies of wartime conditions.     

Gender,Class, and Patriotism: Women's paramilitary units in first world war britain

Abstract

Scholarly histories of twentieth-century China, commonly identified as an East Asian power, tend to cover only the eastern half of the country. As John King Fairbank suggests, Chinese foreign affairs are considered principally as a matter of East Asian international relations.¹ Yet China is also a Central Asian power: present-day China encompasses large parts of Central Asia — Xinjiang, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet — of which the population is chiefly composed of non-Han ethnic minorities. When the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s removed a major security threat to China, the creation of the Central Asian republics — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan — gave it the opportunity to reassert its historical claims to influence throughout Central Asia.² The launch of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization in 1996, and the annual Shanghai summits that followed, are clear evidence of China's attempts to dominate Central Asian affairs in the post-Soviet era.³     

Returned Diplomats,French Engineers,and the Qingxi Ironworks: Self-Strengthening and Self-Representation in the Late Qing

This article explores the history of the Qingxi Ironworks in late Qing Guizhou. Instead of focusing on state-centered industrialization or technology transfer and scientific knowledge in Qing mining and coal enterprises, this study focuses on the individual ambitions and identity construction of two returned diplomats—Chen Jitong and Chen Mingyuan—who sought to claim authority over a mining interest in China’s southwest interior. By leveraging their knowledge of the West to serve as intermediaries between state and foreign commercial interests, these cosmopolitan yet marginalized elites sought to convert their foreign expertise and avowed commitment to “self-strengthening” into new forms of social and political capital. An examination of the personal networks and written accounts surrounding their entrepreneurial ventures sheds light on the opportunities and challenges experienced by a generation of “foreign affairs” experts in repositioning themselves within the transforming Qing polity through participation in industrialization projects.     

Popular Presidents Can Affect Congressional Attention,for a Little While

Does the president have the ability to set the congressional agenda? Agenda setting is a prerequisite for influence, so this is an important element in understanding presidential–legislative relations. We focus on the State of the Union address and show that popular presidents can, indeed, cause Congress to shift attention to those topics most emphasized. The impact is tempered by divided government and time, however. No matter the state of divided government, however, popular presidents can direct congressional attention, at least for a little while. Unpopular presidents, by contrast, are irrelevant.     

Assessing Presidential Communications in Civil Rights Policymaking

This chapter compares the public communications of modern presidents across target groups and issue areas of civil rights. We find that attention, support, and symbolism on civil rights vary considerably across individual presidents and political party. Not surprisingly, in their public messages Democratic presidents are more attentive and supportive of civil rights than are Republican presidents. Some results were expected, while others were surprising. Lyndon B. Johnson was attentive and supportive; but, unexpectedly, George H. W. Bush was highly attentive to and quite nonsupportive of civil rights. Also surprisingly, on most indicators, Bush's policy statements were less symbolic and less equivocal than were Ronald W. Reagan's. Most attention is given to blacks as a target group (although this is declining) and to the employment issue area. Overall, the findings reveal the considerable flexibility and discretion in presidents' public communications in the civil rights realm.     

Unintended consequences: an examination of Australia's ‘historic policy shift’ on East Timor

The Howard government's foreign policy objectives concerning East Timor remain the subject of intense historical debate. Given that some Indonesians harbour suspicions about Australia's role in East Timor's independence, it is important to reflect on Australia's diplomacy throughout this period. This article draws on 15 interviews with former politicians and officials—including Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer—to argue that in 1998, Australia's foreign policy was focused on supporting Indonesia's democratisation process and maintaining the bilateral relationship. It was only when Indonesia moved towards a ‘special status’ of autonomy for East Timor that Australia reconsidered its own position. Although rarely acknowledged, Australia's policy shift actually precipitated outcomes that it had sought to avoid. As such, Habibie's decision to allow self-determination in East Timor can only be viewed as an unintended consequence of Australian diplomacy—independence was never the objective of Australian foreign policy.