The Domestic Politics of Covert Action

• In Event: Covert Action and Regime Change

Abstract

The United States has intervened in many countries covertly, often replacing foreign heads of state with more palatable or pliable ones. Explanations for these interventions generally focus on the characteristics of the target country and the strategic incentives to pursue regime change abroad. This paper provides a theory for understanding the supply side of coups, namely the domestic political factors that facilitate or constrain the US president's authorization of covert political interventions. We argue that legislative oversight over intelligence and covert action alters the calculus for the president and increases the political costs of this particular foreign policy instrument. In other words, while the demand for covert regime change remains largely unaltered, fluctuations in use over time is best explained by changes in the domestic political environment in the United States. Drawing on scholarship on legislative-executive relations, we argue that level of legislative oversight varies due to changes in Congress's ability and desire to constrain the use of covert action as an instrument of Executive power. We also show that Legislative authority over covert action is partly explained by external threat perception, but also that interest in this particular issue is driven primarily by intra-elite dynamics, rather than public/electoral pressure. Using a combination of process tracing, historical analysis, and content analysis, we offer new evidence of US involvement in foreign regime change and trace the evolution of Congressional oversight and elite attention to covert action. In addition to helping explain patterns in US covert action, this paper contributes to the new literature on the domestic-political drivers of foreign policy and the mechanisms underlying executive constraints (or lack thereof) in democracies.

Authors

• Dani Nedal, Carnegie Mellon University

• Madison V. Schramm, Georgetown University