Scholars have long been interested in how presidents make decisions in foreign
policy. Often, the theories about foreign policy decision making focus on the choice to
use or not use one particular foreign policy tool. Many studies often ignore or underplay
the importance of domestic politics to foreign policy decisions. In this thesis, I ask how
do American presidents choose which foreign policy tool to use in a given situation? I
propose a domestic politics-based explanation, relying on presidential ideology,
performance of the domestic economy, divided government, and the electoral clock. I
use a simultaneous equations framework to model the choice between using "sticks" (i.e.
military force and economic sanctions) and "carrots" (economic aid and military aid).
The results provide qualified support for the domestic politics theory. Domestic
politics matters for some types of foreign policy decisions but not for others. Presidential
ideology and domestic economic performance condition presidential decisions to use
force. Election timing is also important; presidents choose to use less politically costly
foreign policy tools late in their term. The results also demonstrate that there is a
connection between the decision to use military force and to use economic sanctions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-05-617 |
| Date | 2009 May 1900 |
| Creators | Snideman, Samuel S. |
| Contributors | Geva, Nehemia |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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