Welche Rolle spielt der US-Kongress bei der Kontrolle militärischer Interventionen und welche Motive der Kongressmitglieder lassen sich dabei identifizieren? Die Arbeit zeigt, dass sich die Legislative keineswegs immer dem Präsidenten unterordnet und dass die Kongressmitglieder ihr Verhalten primär mit dem Verweis auf nationale Interessen rechtfertigen.
Zugriffsoptionen:
Die folgenden Links führen aus den jeweiligen lokalen Bibliotheken zum Volltext:
AbstractTo what extent was U.S. President Donald J. Trump's populist foreign policy agenda supported by the Republican Party (GOP) in Congress? A bourgeoning literature on Congress and U.S. foreign policy has identified increasing partisan disagreement on international issues. Trump's "America First" policy may have further incited division and ideological controversies. At the same time, the 45th U.S. president's foreign and security policies were, to a large degree, at odds with traditional GOP policy positions. To understand executive–legislative relations on foreign and security policy during the Trump administration, and in particular the role of the GOP, this paper first investigates voting records in Congress during the Obama and Trump presidencies. The analysis reveals that the reaction to Trump's "America First" doctrine was not uniform and that parts of the GOP asserted themselves against the president. To explain the sources of this variance, the article focuses on two policy areas with varied GOP positioning: arms control (pro Trump) and foreign aid (contra Trump). In sum, the analysis reveals that some Republicans with traditionalist views (the so-called GOP establishment) opposed some of Trump's anti-internationalist policies, in particular those that contradicted long-standing GOP preferences regarding vital U.S. security interests. At the same time, Republicans supported Trump on issues where the GOP could continue its policy preference, on arms control in particular.
AbstractUS arms control policies have shifted frequently in the last 60 years, ranging from the role of a 'brakeman' regarding international arms control, to the role of a 'booster,' initiating new agreements. My article analyzes the conditions that contribute to this mixed pattern. A crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) evaluates 24 cases of US decisions on international arms control treaties (1963–2021). The analysis reveals that the strength of conservative treaty skeptics in the Senate, in conjunction with other factors, has contributed to the demise of arms control policies since the end of the Cold War. A brief study of the Trump administration's arms control policies provides case-sensitive insights to corroborate the conditions identified by the QCA. The findings suggest that conservative treaty skeptics contested the bipartisan consensus and thus impaired the ability of the USA to perform its leadership role within the international arms control regime.
This article examines the extent and patterns of politicisation in the field of military interventions for the USA after the end of the Cold War. The analysis shows that key votes on war and peace in the US Congress are contested to a higher degree than in the European parliaments. It finds that Republican members of Congress (MoC) are in general more supportive of military interventions than Democrats. At the same time, party loyalty towards the president influences the level of support. Furthermore, an original content analysis of congressional debates reveals that MoC use specific argumentative frames in line with partisan ideology. Both parts of the analysis point to the relevance of partisanship and partisan ideology for understanding the politicisation of military interventions policies. Thus, the traditional bipartisan spirit, paradigmatically invoked by US Senator Arthur Vandenberg during the Cold War, has almost vanished.
"Previous studies have characterized the U.S. Congress as uniformly weak in carrying out its constitutional responsibility in the politics of military interventions vis-a-vis the president. The picture, however, has more nuances when not only legislative activism prior to the use of force but also the efforts of Congress to control and provide oversight to ongoing military interventions is evaluated. This differentiated perspective on the various tools of democratic control is applied to a structured-focused comparison of U.S. military interventions between 1973 and 2013. Indeed, there is a considerable variance in executive-legislative relations concerning the war powers question, which contradicts the traditional finding of a consistently weak Congress. While in some cases Congress is indeed deferential towards the executive, there is also evidence of legislative assertiveness, when members of the legislative branch perceive a military intervention as not serving U.S. national security interests." (author's abstract)
"By applying role theory to grasp intra-role conflicts and shifting ego/alter interactions between states, US-German Relations can be adequately understood. Conflicts between the partners may arise when the ego-part of a role shifts due to national role contestations. The adapted role may lead to new expectations towards the partner, thereby triggering an intra-role conflict if ego- and alter-norms collide. While US-German relations remained largely stable during the Cold War, as ego/alter interactions were complementary, intra-role conflicts emerged from 1991 onwards. The argument is unfolded regarding Germany's out-of-area debate (1993-1999), US unilateral turn after 9/11 (2002-2008), and the new burden-sharing struggle (since 2008)." (author's abstract)
