The US Presidency and American Foreign Policy

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The US Presidency and American Foreign Policy

• The Most Powerful Job on Earth

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Presidential Powers

• Article 2, Section 1
• Executive Power in a Prez and VP for 4 years
• Article 2, Section 2
• Commander-in-Chief
• Pardons
• Make treaties
• Nominate and appoint and fill vacancies

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Presidential Powers

• Article 2, Section 3
• Information on State of the Union
• Convene Special Congressional Sessions
• Receive Foreign ambassadors
• Article 2, Section 4
• Removed by Impeachment for treason, bribery, high
  crimes and misdemeanors

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Presidential Powers

• 20th Amendment
• Changed term to begin January 20
• 22nd Amendment
• 2 terms
• 25th Amendment
• Presidential succession and disability

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Presidential Expectations

• Chief of State
• Chief Executive
• Commander-in-Chief
• Chief Diplomat
• Chief Legislator
• Party Chief
• Voice of the people
• Protector of the Peace
• Manager of the Prosperity
• World leader
• ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!

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Presidential Limitations

• Congress
• Courts
• Bureaucracy
• Federalism
• Capitalism
• Public
• Time
• Outside Forces

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Evolution of the Presidency

• Traditional Do Nothing Presidency
• Modern Presidency
• greater formal and informal powers for initiative
• increased staff and advisory capacity
• Brownlow Commission Report (1937)
• EOP (1939)
• agenda setter
• most visible national actor

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Presidential Leadership

• No-Win Presidency?
• Lead by Command or by Persuasion?
• The Presidents Helpers
• The One, The Few, or The Many?

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Advising the President

• The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

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The Good Brent Scowcroft (?)

• NSA to Ford and 41
• General, USAF (ret.)
• PhD Columbia
• (pic courtesy www.scowcroft.com)

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The Bad John M. Poindexter (!)

• NSA to Reagan 85-86
• Vice Admiral, USN (ret.)
• convicted in 1990 of conspiracy, obstruction of
  justice, and destruction of evidence in
  connection with the Iran-Contra affair
• Overturned on appeal
• (Don Rypka-AFP)
• Condi is a close second?

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The Ugly You pick
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The First

• McGeorge Bundy
• JFK and LBJ, 1961-1966
• Harvards Dean of the Faculty at 34
• 1919-1996
• Actually the first was Robert Cutler for Ike

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The Current

• Stephen J. Hadley
• Rices Deputy
• CIA called him twice to waive off the Niger
  uranium story
• Lawyer, and worked at the Scowcroft Group
• NSC (Staff) in Ford administration (NATO and
  Europe)
• b. 1947, Toledo, OH
• BA, Cornell (69) JD, Yale (72)
• (Pic stolen from usinfo.state.gov)

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Its MY power!

• National Security Act 1947
• NSC
• JCS
• SecDef (et al.)
• CIA
• Increasing reliance on NSC staff
• Centralization of policymaking in the White House

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OK, not really all in the White House
Eisenhower (Old) Executive Office Building
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Advising the President

• Short Run Advantages for the President
• Long Run Disadvantages for the Presidency?
• Principal-Agent Relationships

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Advising the President

• Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking
  in Foreign Policy The Effective Use of
  Information and Advice (Boulder, CO Westview,
  1980)

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Staffing Systems(Ideal Types)

• Formalistic
• Competitive
• Collegial

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Formalistic Systems
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Formalistic Systems
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More Formalism
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Competitive System
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Collegial Model
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Decision-Making Tasks

• Survey Objectives
• Canvass Alternatives
• Search for Information
• Assimilate and Process New and Discrepant
  Information
• Evaluate Costs, Risks, Implications
• Develop Implementation, Monitoring, and
  Contingency Plans

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Process-Outcomes

• Irving Janis Groupthink

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(No Transcript)
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Process-Outcome Link?

• Herek, G. M., I. Janis and P. Huth, Decision
  Making during International Crisis Is Quality of
  Process Related to Outcome? Journal of Conflict
  Resolution 31 (1987) 203-226.
• Mark Shafer and Scott CrichlowThe
  Process-Outcome Connection in Foreign Policy
  Decision Making A Quantitative Study Building on
  Groupthink, International Studies Quarterly 46
  (March 2002) 45-68.
• Figure from John T. Rourke and Mark A. Boyer,
  International Politics on the World Stage
  (Boston McGraw-Hill, 2004, 5/ed brief edition)

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Getting it Right

• George Multiple Advocacy
• Not sure I can tell you how to guarantee success,
  but I can tell you how to nearly guarantee
  failure. And scandal.