Cooptation at the Creation: Elite Consensus on US Participation in the UN

• In Event: US Bureaucratic and Legislative Politics in International Organizations

Abstract

How do leaders manage – and thwart – potential elite opposition to major foreign policy initiatives? Past research on domestic politics in democracies has focused on the leader-public relationship and, more recently, intra-elite political games. We theorize two novel methods for manufacturing elite consensus through a revised historical narrative of the American ratification of the United Nations (UN) Charter. Drawing on archival, memoir, and other primary sources, we analyze how presidents Roosevelt and Truman avoided expression of elite Congressional opposition to the UN idea. Haunted by Wilson’s failure to win approval of the League of Nations, the presidents did two things. First, they cultivated a new network of extra-governmental experts on foreign affairs as a way to lay the intellectual groundwork well before the war was reaching an end. The draft charter set the terms of debate and this expert network was co-opted into official State Department planning, avoiding potential dissent from entering public discourse. Second, the presidents constructed a bipartisan, legislator-heavy negotiating team to finalize the United Nations’ terms in San Francisco. Potential critics became powerful advocates for the success of the UN and carried dozens of supporting votes in the Senate. Together, these tactics ensured the UN proposal was perceived as depersonalized and nonpartisan, projecting an image of elite consensus. Our interpretation builds on but goes beyond, existing studies of intra-elite bargaining by showing how novel elite tactics explain support for international organization design. Deft political tactics -- rather than the shock of Pearl Harbor or traditional policy concessions -- explain the America’s commitment to a new, liberal postwar order.

Authors

• Austin Carson, University of Chicago

• Matthew Conklin, University of Chicago