Bipartisanship and US Foreign Policy: Cooperation in a Polarized Age
Abstract
Bipartisanship and US Foreign Policy shows that, even as polarization in American politics reaches new heights, Democrats and Republicans in Washington continue to cooperate on many international issues. A close look at congressional voting patterns and major foreign policy debates of recent years—including over military intervention, the use of economic sanctions, international trade, and foreign policy spending—reveals that bipartisanship remains surprisingly common when elected officials turn their attention overseas. Yet bipartisanship today rarely involves unity in Washington. Instead, bipartisan coalitions often coexist with intra-party divisions or disagreement between Congress and the president, making it difficult for the United States to speak with one voice on the global stage. In short, the politics of contemporary US foreign policy are more nuanced than either headlines highlighting extreme polarization or truisms suggesting that politics stops at the water’s edge would suggest. Drawing on new data and interviews of more than 100 US foreign policy practitioners, the book highlights key factors that influence political alignments among elected officials and provides takeaways for efforts to foster more bipartisanship on important foreign policy challenges.
... In them, Trump is usually considered an accelerator or a symptom of polarisation rather than an instigator. On the other hand, many researchers argue that the bipartisan consensus remains fairly robust on various important foreign policy issues (especially NATO; e.g., Böller 2022aBöller , 2023Tama 2023). Bryan and Tama (2022) came to the conclusion that although foreign policy debates have become more polarised, voting patterns still display a relatively stable BFPC. ...
... Overall, there is general agreement that the BFPC has decreased (with differing views of the extent) but that this decrease started before Trump's presidency, which only accelerated it. Further, most works argue that the bipartisan consensus remains intact in some areas, with Tama (2023) and Böller (2023) both determining its robustness concerning the Russia-Ukraine war. Thus, the contrast between promotion of a lasting liberal world order with the BFPC and a continuous shift away from it has been established. ...
... The Russia-Ukraine war arguably created a kind of newfound unity in the United States condemning Russia's actions. There has been a considerable amount of bipartisanship on this issue, which might point to a reorientation towards the bipartisan consensus within the GOP (see also Böller 2022aBöller , 2023Bryan and Tama 2022;Tama 2023). ...
The United States has a longstanding tradition regarding its overall foreign policy, in the form of a bipartisan consensus. This includes—among other things—maintaining alliances and curbing the influence of rivals (e.g., Russia). Since this consensus has been in place, traditionally the Republican Party (GOP) has been especially intent on a less cooperative and more containing or deterring stance towards Russia. With former U.S. President Donald Trump, we can see a turning point in this behaviour by the GOP. Trump’s obvious admiration for Russian president Putin and his statements about Putin being overly favourable, while simultaneously questioning NATO and the United States’ commitment to defend Eastern European partners, show a distinctive shift in the GOP’s discourse. This renunciation has subsequently been picked up by parts of the Republican Party, rendering the bipartisan consensus a contested issue. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 now constitutes an important external shock influencing said discursive shift. By drawing on discourse-bound identity theory and discourse analysis, the GOP’s discourse regarding Russia and NATO is expected to have (substantially) changed in a kind of Zeitenwende—back towards the bipartisan consensus. This article will, therefore, analyse the statements of prominent Republicans after the Russian invasion, compare them to Trump’s positions on these issues, and identify whether the invasion serves as a formative event that creates an overall shift in rhetoric and positions.
... The cross-party agreement on banning TikTok reflects a longstanding trend in U.S. foreign policy (Tama, 2024), which indicates that Congress tends to be more unified on international security matters (Bryan & Tama, 2022;McCormick & Wittkopf, 1990;Prins & Marshall, 2001) and issues concerning China (Smeltz, 2022). Nonetheless, this study aims to demonstrate that, despite the overwhelming bipartisan support, there exists significant variation in legislative behavior. ...
... Indeed, when it comes to China, there is a broad consensus in Congress that the U.S. must maintain its global leadership role (Rachman, 2020). Tama's (2024) analysis of U.S. congressional votes from 1991 to 2020 provides further evidence for cross-party cooperation on foreign policy, reinforcing the adage that 'politics stops at the water's edge.' On national security matters, lawmakers are also generally less swayed by constituent opinions, allowing them greater freedom to align with the executive branch (Edwards, 1989). ...
... Based on the two roll-call votes, it is evident that the majority of legislators from both Republican and Democrat Parties supported the ban on TikTok, showing a united front to the rest of the world. This bipartisan support indicates a continued hawkish stance towards China from both parties in Congress (see also Smeltz, 2022;Tama, 2024). Nonetheless, even with the lopsided nature of the votes, this study observes significant variation in legislative behavior both within and across parties. ...
The U.S. House of Representatives made a significant move by passing legislation on the TikTok ban ‘twice’ in less than 40 days. The passed legislation requires that ByteDance—its China-based parent company—divest from TikTok within 270 days. Despite overwhelming bipartisan support, this research aims to provide evidence that there is significant variation in legislator voting behavior attributable to partisanship, ideology, and demographic factors. This study employs logistic regression to analyze the voting decisions of 417 legislators in the first vote and 418 in the second. The results showed that partisanship had a strong effect on the first vote, with Republicans in red states more likely to support the ban. However, the second vote saw a decline in party influence, with white legislators from both parties emerging as key proponents of the ban. Across both votes, the strongest predictor was ideology, with ideological extremists on either the conservative or liberal side more likely to vote against the ban. Younger but longer-tenured legislators as well as non-lawyers also showed a higher likelihood of opposing the ban. This study contributes to the discourse on congressional voting in the context of evolving geopolitical and technological landscapes between the U.S. and China.
... After my fellowship, I set out to understand how levels of bipartisanship or polarization vary across issues and why elected officials line up in different ways in different policy debates. Among other things, I found that bipartisanship remains more common on foreign policy than on domestic policy, and that political alignments on issues are greatly influenced by the ideological and advocacy landscapes associated with them (Tama 2024;Friedrichs and Tama 2024). ...
... This result also runs contrary to some other works, which recently argued that the Cold War was a rare period of bipartisanship, and that partisan contestation of foreign policy actually increased after its end (Wagner, 2020). Notwithstanding the emergent narrative that the extent of partisan polarisation in foreign policy might be overstated (Bryan & Tama, 2022;Tama, 2024), we think that future scholarship must continue to scrutinise the extent of the effect of ideology and polarisation on foreign policy. Future scholarship might, for instance, find that there are varying effects depending on particular treaty types or particular characteristics of states. ...
The existing literature argues that the left is generally more supportive of multilateralism in foreign policy than the right. However, the impact of ideology on state commitment to multilateral cooperation have not yet been empirically tested adequately. We assess the presence of such a left–right divide on state commitment to multilateral treaties employing an original dataset, containing all the available information about the ratification of the multilateral treaties deposited with the UN Secretary General since 1945. Our results indicate that indeed countries led by left-wing leaders are generally faster at ratifying treaties than those led by right-wing leaders. However, the association between leader ideology and commitment to multilateral treaties is substantially conditioned by regime type and the international context. In fact, we find robust evidence of a significant gap in ratification duration between states led by left-wing and right-wing leaders in democracies but not in other regime types, and during the Cold War but not after. Through such findings, this article provides a contribution to the debate on the impact of ideology on international relations and the drivers of global support for multilateralism.
... Overall, Trump's behavior consistently reminded European partner governments that joint policies, agreements, and international institutions such as NATO and the United Nations are vulnerable to shifts in the foreign policy orientation and commitment of the United States (e.g., Koschut 2021; Sperling and Webber 2019). The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine also underlines the international relevance of domestic intra-Republican and Republican-Democrat contestations regarding NATO and U.S. policy toward Russia (e.g., Tama 2023). Moreover, domestic assaults on democratic procedures, journalism, and the legitimacy of political opponents in the United States may provide cues or even lend legitimacy to certain far-right European leaders (e.g., Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán) and challengers (e.g., Germany's Alternative für Deutschland party or France's Rassemblement National) to openly foster autocratization 10 and, in turn, destabilize the European Union. ...
Starting from the most current developments in the legal and political processing of Donald J. Trump’s (post)presidency, this contribution highlights the persisting challenges to the constitutional, social, and political stability of democracy in the United States (U.S.). In particular, it outlines several dimensions of an enabling environment in which Trump(ism) could thrive. A key feature of this is the thorough and ever-growing asymmetry that has come to characterize the partisan political context in the United States and that directs our attention to the conservative side of the political spectrum: the Republican Party as its major organizational embodiment, as well as broader trends of conservative (trans)formation, including those related to the electorate, policies, institutions, civil society, and the media. Thus, this contribution underlines the importance of the multiple and often longer-term influences, conflicts, institutions, and conditions conducive to current developments, including, in particular, the range of actors that have been relevant in shaping them. Asymmetric polarization, economic inequality, and nationalist and anti-government (authoritarian–populist) tendencies and movements are among the factors that together pose the most serious threat to liberal democracy in the United States—and in “the West” more broadly. The introduction illustrates the importance of studying and reflecting upon the implications of the above trends, actors, and conditions for Germany and other European states, for transatlantic cooperation, and even for the global multilateral system as a whole. It concludes with an overview of the research articles in the special issue, outlining their individual as well as overlapping analytical interests and contributions.
Over the years, the US has intervened covertly in many countries to remove dictators, subvert elected leaders, and support coups. Explanations for this focus on characteristics of target countries or strategic incentives to pursue regime change. This Element provides an account of domestic political factors constraining US presidents' authorization of covert foreign-imposed regime change operations (FIRCs), arguing that congressional attention to covert action alters the Executive's calculus by increasing the political costs associated with this secretive policy instrument. It shows that congressional attention is the result of institutional battles over abuses of executive authority and has a significant constraining effect independent of codified rules and partisan disputes. These propositions are tested using content analysis of the Congressional Record, statistical analysis of Cold War covert FIRCs, and causal-process evidence relating to covert interventions in Chile, Angola, Central America, Afghanistan, etc.
Parallèles aux programmes visant à renforcer la présence militaire américaine en Europe, les stratégies d’assistance américaine à l’Ukraine s’imposent comme des outils incontournables de l’arsenal américain pour répondre aux enjeux de sécurité contemporains. Cet article étudie l’évolution de l’assistance américaine à l’Ukraine sous les administrations Obama et Trump. Il met en exergue les formes d’assistance à la fois militaires et civiles et souligne la continuité des deux administrations sur cet enjeu. Le rôle du Congrès et des groupes d’intérêts dans l’élaboration de ces politiques d’assistance est étudié. L’article démontre que les États-Unis ont progressivement sécuritisé leur assistance démocratique et érigé la lutte contre la désinformation russe en tant qu’objectif central de leurs politiques, dans un contexte de guerres de l’information. Les politiques d’assistance, même démocratiques, sont ainsi un outil du smart power américain.
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