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Private Intervention in Foreign Policy
| Article
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12516 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1987 |
2,179 Words |
| Author
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Amos Perlmutter
Amos Perlmutter is professor of political science at
American University and is the author of thirteen books
dealing with the role of the military in politics, strategy
and the Middle East. He is the author of The Life and Times
of Menachem Begin and is the editor of the Journal of
Strategic Studies. |
Whatever the political system, ancient or modern, tyrannical or democratic, totalitarian or military, diplomacy is by nature centralized and bureaucratized. Diplomacy is no longer, if it ever was, merely the foreign affairs arm of the state, nor are diplomats, for that matter, makers of foreign policy.
In the age of the masses, of rapid communication, the policymaking of foreign affairs in the United States was centralized authoritatively in the office of the president. The president has officially appointed secretaries of state, defense, treasury, commerce, and the director of Central Intelligence, as well as a National Security Council, to advise him on foreign affairs.
Today, the formulating and making of foreign policy is no longer the exclusive territory of the president, the cabinet, the government, or the appointed officers and civil servants of government. Foreign affairs is also made by Congress, not only in its function of advice and consent to the president, but also through its investigative authority and the role its members play individually in their input in foreign relations.
Although legally and constitutionally the president is primus inter pares in the making of foreign policy, and it is the constitutional duty and function of Congress to advise him, the media, private individuals, groups, special interests, and lobbies can intervene and even change the course of foreign policy to an agenda different from that of the president and even that of Congress.
The president's policy, whether carried out by one cabinet officer or another, by professional diplomats or specially designated emissaries, is nevertheless the institutionally authoritative and legitimate source of U.S. foreign policy. But can foreign policy also be the legitimate concern of non-professional, nonofficial individuals?
Partisan intervention
Private, but official, emissaries so designated by the president can indeed be the legitimate representatives of a president's foreign policy. In fact, many presidents have relied heavily on private emissaries in the conduct of foreign affairs. Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt did not trust their foreign affairs bureaucracies and used emissaries like Colonel House, Harry Hopkins, Averell Harriman, Gen. Patrick Hurley, and others to circumvent the bureaucracies of the State Department and the diplomatic corps.
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