Reinventing What for Whom? President and Congress in the Making of Foreign Policy
Reinventing What for Whom? President and Congress in the Making of Foreign Policy
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为谁重塑什么？
DOI：
10.1111/j.0360-4918.2000.00101.x
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发表时间：
2000
影响因子：
0.8
通讯作者：
B. Rockman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
B. Rockman
在外交政策决策方面，总统面临哪些紧迫的问题？如果有的话，我们能够而且应该做些什么？有几个经验和规范的困境与这个问题有关。首先，我们对国会和总统在外交政策上的关系到底了解多少？其次，但并非不重要的是，为什么我们应该假设外交政策是总统制定的，因此，这个系统必须重新设计以满足总统的需要或方便（爱德华兹1990）？第三，我们能否区分某一位总统或某一组总统的问题与所有总统的问题？这些问题至少在某种程度上是不同的，因为并非所有总统都想要同样的东西，或者在实现这些目标时面临同样的障碍。例如，无论是在外交政策还是国内政策上，那些违背传统智慧或削弱主导联盟的总统，将比那些遵循更传统路线的总统面临更艰难的考验。例如，吉米·卡特（Jimmy Carter）试图成为冷战后的第一位总统，当时正值冷战重新升温。第四，我们如何区分总统的问题和国家的问题，总统的利益和国家的利益？事实上，加强总统在外交政策方面的能力，对国家的前景既有利也有弊。在这方面，我们是想收紧还是放松对总统的束缚，是我们治理理论的一个功能，无论我们本质上是汉密尔顿主义者还是麦迪逊主义者。我们在多大程度上相信一个权威机构能做正确的事？最终，与这些问题相关的是，我们在多大程度上得出这样的结论：政治在外交政策过程中如此渗透，以至于扭曲了优先事项，对替代方案进行了刻板印象，并导致了糟糕的决策（Destler, Gelb, and Lake, 1984）？相反，我们是否认为，就像华尔兹（1967）所认为的那样，过程越开放，就越能阻止总统制造重大失败，而且在任何情况下，总统很少被国会阻止冒险？总统在美国体系中的优势与总统必须与之打交道的其他人的优势成反比。在某种程度上，独立力量（因此，潜在的抵抗力量）更强，总统相对更弱；从某种程度上说，他们更弱，总统相对更强。这至少是等式中的制度部分。但是制度促进而不是决定（Weaver and Rockman 1993）。在我们最不期望他们成为外交政策制定者的时候（杜鲁门在第80届国会期间），在我们最期望他们成为外交政策制定者的时候（约翰逊在第89届国会期间），总统是最不有效的。杜鲁门建立了一个跨党派联盟，帮助欧洲恢复复苏，并协助民主化。约翰逊暗中领导美国对多米尼加共和国进行可疑的军事干预，并灾难性地升级了对越南的军事干预。此外，在华盛顿发生的事情经常是，也许更有力的是，它之外发生的事情的结果，例如政策共识或冲突和党派关系的潜在程度（Mann 1990）。总统的利益和利益冲突我们如何区分总统的利益和国家的利益？要重新描述福尔摩斯，我可以这样开始：“这是主观的，我亲爱的华生”（罗德1994）。政治生活中最明显的事实之一是，我们希望总统在制定外交（或任何其他类型）政策时拥有的自由裁量权的大小取决于我们对现任总统的总体判断，而这种判断又在很大程度上取决于我们个人的政党倾向与总统的政党标签之间的一致性或缺乏一致性（Mueller 1973）。自1968年大选以来，行政和立法部门在超过四分之三的时间里处于分裂状态（至少是部分分裂），这一事实强化了这样一种观点，即我们每个人都认为对国家最有利的是哪个政党控制哪个政府部门。…
What are the pressing problems of the presidency in foreign policy decision making, and what, if anything, can and should be done about them? There are several empirical and normative dilemmas associated with this question. First, how much do we actually know about the congressional-presidential relationship in foreign policy? Second, but hardly unimportant, why ought we to assume that foreign policy is the president's to make, and, therefore, the system has to be reinvented to suit presidential needs or conveniences (Edwards 1990)? Third, can we distinguish between the problems of a particular president or a particular set of presidents and those of all presidents? The problems are, at least to some extent, different because not all presidents want the same things or face the same obstacles in achieving them. Presidents, for example, who cut against the grain of conventional wisdom or erode dominant coalitions, whether in foreign or domestic policy, are going to have tougher sledding than do those who follow more conventional routes. Jimmy Carter tried to be the first post-cold war president, for example, just as the cold war was reheating. Fourth, how do we distinguish the president's problems from the country's and the president's interests from the nation's? In fact, it is surely possible that strengthening presidential capability in foreign policy could damage as much as strengthen the country's prospects. In this respect, whether we want to tighten the leash on presidents or loosen it is a function of our theory of governance, whether we are at heart Hamiltonians or Madisonians. How much do we trust a single authority to do what is right? Related to these issues, ultimately, is the extent to which we conclude that politics has so infused the foreign policy process that it has distorted priorities, stereotyped alternatives, and resulted in poor decisions (Destler, Gelb, and Lake 1984)? Conversely, do we think, as Waltz (1967) had, that the more open the process, the more a president may be deterred from producing grand failures and that, in any event, presidents are rarely deterred by Congress from taking risks? The president's strengths in the American system lie in inverse relation to the strengths of others with whom the president must deal. To the degree that independent (and, therefore, potentially resisting) forces are stronger, the president is relatively weaker; to the extent that they are weaker, the president is relatively stronger. That, at least, is the institutional part of the equation. But institutions facilitate rather than determine (Weaver and Rockman 1993). Presidents have been effective foreign policy makers when we least expected them to be (Truman during the Eightieth Congress) and least effective when we most expected them to be (Johnson during the Eighty-ninth Congress). Truman built an interparty coalition to help bring Europe back to recovery and assist democratization. Johnson furtively led the United States into a dubious military intervention in the Dominican Republic and escalated disastrously the military intervention in Vietnam. Furthermore, what happens in Washington is frequently, and perhaps more powerfully, a consequence of what happens outside of it the underlying degree of policy consensus or conflict and partisanship, for example (Mann 1990). Presidential Interests and Conflicting Interests How can we tell what is in the president's interests from the nation's? To rephrase Sherlock Holmes, one could begin my saying, "It's subjective, my dear Watson" (Rohde 1994). One of the clearest facts of political life is that the amount of discretionary capacity we want presidents to have in making foreign (or any other kind of) policy depends on our judgment of the incumbent president overall, which, in turn, rests heavily on the consonance or lack thereof between our personal party predisposition and the president's party label (Mueller 1973). The fact that the executive and legislative branches have been divided (at least in part) for more than three-quarters of the time since the 1968 elections reinforces the idea that what we each think best for the country is a function of which party holds which branch of government. …