Matthew Caverly

The Multiple Presidencies Thesis: Presidential-congressional Foreign Policy Relations Across Issues Areas and Political Time Matthew Caverly

The Multiple Presidencies Thesis states that presidential-congressional foreign policy relations are best viewed as differential sets of issue area relationships. These issue areas include national security, domestic security, diplomacy, trade, foreign aid, and immigration. The proximity of the issue area to an institutional center of power is determinative of where the power lies in that relationship. In the high politics issue areas of national security, domestic security, and diplomacy a presidency dominated policy making dynamic exists. Meanwhile, those issue areas associated with a low politics of trade, foreign aid, and immigration place the Congress in a place of power relative to the presidency. The reasons for this are two-fold. First, the executive branch has a constitutional-historical role for autonomy in the issues of war and peace. Second, the Congress is more domestically focused. Thus, issue areas of foreign policy which are more intermestic in their foundation will allow the Congress to assert greater power in its relationship with the president. Finally, history itself either promotes or demotes one actor or another in the conduct of foreign affairs.