Towards parliamentarisation of foreign and security policy?

Abstract

It is customary to argue that foreign policy is very much dominated by the executive, with parliaments wielding limited influence. However, with the exception of the US Congress, legislative‒executive relations in the realm of foreign and security policy have attracted remarkably little scholarly attention. Drawing on a principal‒agent framework, this collection scrutinises the conventional wisdom of ‘executive autonomy’ in foreign affairs, indicating that even though parliaments have arguably become more involved in foreign and security policy over time, any notions of parliamentarisation need to be treated with caution. While expectations of consensus in the name of the national interest continue to play an important role in foreign policy decision-making, the papers highlight the role of party-political contestation structuring parliamentary debates and votes in this increasingly politicised issue area. This introductory paper introduces the analytical framework and hypotheses guiding the contributions in this collection, summarises their main findings and suggests avenues for future research.

Keywords:

• Parliament
• government
• legislative‒executive relations
• foreign affairs
• security policy

Notes

1. As we focus on national legislative‒executive relations, the European Parliament is not at the centre of attention in any of the papers in this collection. Interparliamentary cooperation and the international contacts of political parties and MPs are also mentioned only in those instances where they are relevant for understanding the role of domestic parliaments in foreign affairs. On interparliamentary networking, including in CFSP, see for example Costa et al. (2013), Crum and Fossum (2013), and Herranz-Surrallés (2014).

2. In the United States this argument has been strongly influenced by the thesis about ‘two presidencies’, initially proposed by Wildavsky (1966), with the president enjoying considerably more discretion in foreign affairs than in domestic matters.

3. An extension of this argument is that granting parliaments a say in foreign policy makes international bargaining more difficult: status quo bias in world politics increases when the role of the legislature and other domestic veto-players is more institutionalised. A counter-argument is that ex ante legislative engagement can contribute to the credibility of the negotiators and have a positive impact on the eventual implementation of the pacts (Martin 2000).

4. The executive may utilise legislative veto as a bargaining chip in international negotiations. This feature is known as the ‘Schelling Conjecture’ (Schelling 1960), according to which an executive whose hands are tied by a domestic ratification constraint such as a parliamentary veto can negotiate more favourable outcomes than an unconstrained executive. However, it is nonetheless predominantly argued that the structural two-level games logic of international bargaining shields governments from parliamentary control. The executive branch can use international institutions to insulate themselves from parliaments and other domestic actors, and to push through or legitimise even unpopular reforms (Evans et al. 1993; Mansfield and Milner 2012; Milner 1997; Pahre 2006; Putnam 1988).

5. The War Powers Resolution was intended to curb and constrain the president’s right to use force abroad, making sure that the executive consulted Congress and also gets its approval during military operations. No president has acknowledged the constitutionality of the resolution, and several presidents have disregarded it, including Barack Obama in 2011 when he did not seek congressional approval for the attack on Libya, arguing that the resolution did not apply to that action. Many voices inside Congress have also argued that the resolution is too ambitious and goes too far – some issues are simply better left to the executive, and the president needs a certain level of discretion for the efficient conduct of military operations.

6. It was precisely this collective action aspect which made it so surprising when the Turkish Grand National Assembly refused to ratify the government’s decision in March 2003 to permit the United States to use Turkey as an air base for its operations in Iraq (Kesgin and Kaarbo 2010).

7. Government composition is also relevant, with coalitions arguably less likely to use force abroad than single-party cabinets (Auerswald and Saideman 2014; Mello 2014), although other research suggests that multi-party cabinets actually correlate positively with international commitments and conflictual behaviour (Beasley and Kaarbo 2014; Clare 2010; Kaarbo 2012).