Divided We Defend: Partisan Control and U.S. Foreign Policy in Congress

• In Event: Congress and Foreign Policy

Abstract

How is U.S. foreign policy different under unified government versus divided government? In this paper, I argue that a Congress under unified government pays less attention to foreign affairs than divided government. This is because under unified government, the majority party would like to take this hard-won and fleeting opportunity to pass legislation that they think will help them in the next election. And such legislation, in most cases, concerns domestic issues. Due to the limitation of legislators’ attention span and Congress’ agenda space, consideration of foreign affairs-related bills is postponed. To test my hypotheses, I examine whether a bill dealing with international affairs is more likely to receive House or Senate’s floor consideration under divided government than under unified government. I analyze all the bills that deal with international affairs from the 107th to 117th Houses and Senates (2001-2022), and find that divided government increases the likelihood of an international affairs bill being considered by the House, but such influence is conditional on the bill’s complexity and scope for Senate bills.

Author

• Guan Wang, University of Maryland, Baltimore County