Bureaucracies and Foreign Policy

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

How do bureaucracies and their bureaucrats shape foreign policy? In this panel, we bring together a collection of research that develops the theoretical and empirical study of the effect of domestic bureaucracies on foreign policy. There is substantial variation in how states design their bureaucracies, yet their effects on policy and the resulting international outcomes remain underexplored. By examining the role of bureaucracies, these papers advance the research agenda on the effect of domestic politics on international politics. Bautista-Chavez examines the role of bureaucracies on immigration enforcement. She analyzes the role of bureaucratic reputations in forging interstate cooperation on border security. Using case studies of the United States and Mexico, she shows bureaucrats act strategically to facilitate interstate cooperation on border and migration policies. Stanescu shows bureaucratic structure also matters for trade policy outcomes, by exploring how the structure of foreign policy decision-making shapes economic liberalization. Using an original measure of bureaucratic structure, she shows that splitting the trade portfolio among more agencies, as opposed to ministries and advisory groups, decreases the probability countries will employ trade barriers. Similarly, Carcelli explores the role of domestic bureaucratic structure in shaping policy. Testing the argument in the context of aid policy, she shows states characterized by more fragmented bureaucratic structures are less likely to adjust their behavior following global performance assessments. Finally, Foster explores these dynamics in the context of competition policy. Where regulatory agencies are subjected to more extensive political controls, foreign firms face more punitive punishments than domestic ones, controlling for firm-level characteristics. By contrast, where enforcement bureaucracies are formally independent from elected officials, foreign and domestic firms face more similar sanctions. The empirical pattern suggests that independent regulatory institutions can provide an important check against regulatory protectionism in an era of globalized regulatory enforcement. Whether we look within states, across states, or at the international level, we find that bureaucracies and their bureaucrats are active in shaping political outcomes.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 20: Foreign Policy

Individual Presentations

• Bureaucratic Reputations: Explaining Interstate Cooperation on Border Security - Angie Maritza Bautista-Chavez, Harvard University

• Agents or Advisors: Domestic Institutional Design and the Politics of Protection - Diana Stanescu, Princeton University

• Bureaucratic Reactions to Global Performance Assessments - Shannon Carcelli, University of Maryland, College Park

• The Protectionist Politics of Enforcement?: Competition Policy and Foreign Firms - Chase Michael Foster, Brown University

Chair

• Jennifer L Tobin Georgetown University

Discussants

• Dan Honig Johns Hopkins University

• Mona Vakilifathi New York University