BiblioVault - Books about Domestic Politics

The American Warfare State

The Domestic Politics of Military Spending

Rebecca U. Thorpe

University of Chicago Press, 2014

How is it that the United States—a country founded on a distrust of standing armies and strong centralized power—came to have the most powerful military in history? Long after World War II and the end of the Cold War, in times of rising national debt and reduced need for high levels of military readiness, why does Congress still continue to support massive defense budgets?

In The American Warfare State, Rebecca U. Thorpe argues that there are profound relationships among the size and persistence of the American military complex, the growth in presidential power to launch military actions, and the decline of congressional willingness to check this power. The public costs of military mobilization and war, including the need for conscription and higher tax rates, served as political constraints on warfare for most of American history. But the vast defense industry that emerged from World War II also created new political interests that the framers of the Constitution did not anticipate. Many rural and semirural areas became economically reliant on defense-sector jobs and capital, which gave the legislators representing them powerful incentives to press for ongoing defense spending regardless of national security circumstances or goals. At the same time, the costs of war are now borne overwhelmingly by a minority of soldiers who volunteer to fight, future generations of taxpayers, and foreign populations in whose lands wars often take place.

Drawing on an impressive cache of data, Thorpe reveals how this new incentive structure has profoundly reshaped the balance of wartime powers between Congress and the president, resulting in a defense industry perennially poised for war and an executive branch that enjoys unprecedented discretion to take military action.

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The Challenge of Hegemony

Grand Strategy, Trade, and Domestic Politics

Steven E. Lobell

University of Michigan Press, 2005

The Challenge of Hegemony explains how international forces subtly influence foreign, economic, and security policies of declining world powers. Using detail-rich case studies, this sweeping study integrates domestic and systemic policy to explain these countries' grand strategies. The book concludes with a discussion of the implications for the future of American foreign policy.

"His conceptually rigorous and tightly reasoned study . . . reminds us that power is never value neutral but organizes commercial systems in liberal or imperial terms."
---Perspectives on Politics

"Lobell's book is tightly written, nicely argued and thoroughly researched to a fault. He seems to delight in historical detail. The complexity of his approach is refreshing."
---International Affairs

"The Challenge of Hegemony is a pleasure to read. It is both theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich."
---International Studies Review

"The Challenge of Hegemony offers a compelling reinterpretation of key historical cases and provides wise guidance as to how the United States should wield its power today."
--Charles A. Kupchan, Council on Foreign Relations

"Lobell demonstrates clearly how the international environment confronting great powers interacts with their domestic political coalitions to produce different grand strategies. Through a masterful sweep of history, Lobell shows us the alternative trajectories before the United States today."
--David A. Lake, University of California, San Diego

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Crisis Bargaining and the State

The Domestic Politics of International Conflict

Susan Peterson

University of Michigan Press, 1996

The first book to systematically explore the importance of domestic institutions to crisis bargaining, Crisis Bargaining and the State argues that the influence of a state's bargaining behavior on its opponents foreign policy depends on the nature of the opposing government--its institutional structures and the strategic beliefs of its leaders. The author shows in three detailed case studies--the Crimean War crisis, the Fashoda crisis, and the Berlin crisis--the significance of domestic factors to questions of war and peace.
Peterson offers a comprehensive analysis of the domestic politics of crisis bargaining. She uses differences in state structure to explain variations in foreign policy processes and outcomes. By introducing domestic structure as a crucial intervening variable between the international environment and a state's foreign policy during an acute conflict, Peterson shows how existing cognitive and bureaucratic approaches provide complementary, not competing, explanations of crisis bargaining.
Crisis Bargaining and the State: The Domestic Politics of International Conflict applies recent research in the field of international political economy on the relationship between ideas, institutions, and the international environment to the issue of crisis bargaining. It will appeal to students, scholars, and policymakers interested in crisis bargaining, international security, and international relations.
Susan Peterson is Assistant Professor, Department of Government, The College of William & Mary.

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The Cuban Embargo

The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy

Patrick Haney

University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005

The United States and Cuba share a complex, fractious, interconnected history. Before 1959, the United States was the island nation's largest trading partner. But in swift reaction to Cuba's communist revolution, the United States severed all economic ties between the two nations, initiating the longest trade embargo in modern history, one that continues to the presentday. The Cuban Embargo examines the changing politics of U.S. policy toward Cuba over the more than four decades since the revolution.

While the U.S. embargo policy itself has remained relatively stable since its origins during the heart of the Cold War, the dynamics that produce and govern that policy have changed dramatically. Although originally dominated by the executive branch, the president's tight grip over policy has gradually ceded to the influence of interest groups, members of Congress, and specific electoral campaigns and goals. Haney and Vanderbush track the emergence of the powerful Cuban American National Foundation as an ally of the Reagan administration, and they explore the more recent development of an anti-embargo coalition within both civil society and Congress, even as the Helms-Burton Act and the George W. Bush administration have further tightened the embargo. Ultimately they demonstrate how the battles over Cuba policy, as with much U.S. foreign policy, have as much to do with who controls the policy as with the shape of that policy itself.

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Delivering on Promises

The Domestic Politics of Compliance in International Courts

Lauren J. Peritz

University of Chicago Press, 2022

A timely investigation into the conditions that make international agreements—and the institutions that enforce them—vulnerable.

When do international institutions effectively promote economic cooperation among countries and help them resolve conflict? Although the international system lacks any central governing authority, states have created rules, particularly around international economic relations, and empowered international tribunals to enforce those rules. Just how successful are these institutions? In Delivering on Promises Lauren J. Peritz demonstrates that these international courts do indeed deliver results—but they are only effective under certain conditions.

As Peritz shows, states are less likely to comply with international rules and international court decisions when domestic industries have the political ability to obstruct compliance in particular cases. The author evaluates the argument with an extensive empirical analysis that traces the domestic politics of compliance with the decisions of two international economic courts: the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement mechanism and the Court of Justice of the European Union. At a time when international agreements are under attack, this book sheds light on the complex relationship between domestic politics and international economic cooperation, offering detailed evidence that international economic courts are effective at promoting interstate cooperation.

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Securing Approval

Domestic Politics and Multilateral Authorization for War

Terrence L. Chapman

University of Chicago Press, 2011

Among the most momentous decisions that leaders of a state are called upon to make is whether or not to initiate warfare. How their military will fare against the opponent may be the first consideration, but not far behind are concerns about domestic political response and the reaction of the international community.

Securing Approval makes clear the relationship between these two seemingly distinct concerns, demonstrating how multilateral security organizations like the UN influence foreign policy through public opinion without ever exercising direct enforcement power. While UN approval of a proposed action often bolsters public support, its refusal of endorsement may conversely send a strong signal to domestic audiences that the action will be exceedingly costly or overly aggressive. With a cogent theoretical and empirical argument, Terrence L. Chapman provides new evidence for how multilateral organizations matter in security affairs as well as a new way of thinking about the design and function of these institutions.

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Subcontinental Drift

Domestic Politics and India's Foreign Policy

Rajesh M. Basrur

Georgetown University Press

How domestic constraints hamper India’s foreign policy and its potential as a superpower

One of the most important developments in today’s changing international system is the emergence of India as a rising power. However, Rajesh Basrur finds that India is hobbled by serious domestic constraints. Subcontinental Drift explains why India’s foreign policy is often characterized by multiple hesitations, delays, and diversions that may ultimately hamper its rise.

Basrur analyzes the concept of policy drift through the lens of neoclassical realist theory to reveal why this drift occurs so regularly in Indian foreign policy and how it affects India’s quest for major power status. Using four cases—the India-US strategic partnership, India-Sri Lanka relations, India’s nuclear strategy, and crossborder terrorism—Basrur identifies two basic explanations for India’s indecision on critical issues. The first, involuntary drift, is related to the distribution of domestic material power, while the second, voluntary drift, is produced by a responsibility deficit.

Basrur develops a fresh theoretical basis for understanding the relationship between India’s foreign and domestic policies and introduces a series of theoretical refinements to neoclassical realism. Subcontinental Drift also provides advice on how policy makers might lower the costs of policy drift. This innovative analysis is essential to understanding the constraints around India’s foreign and domestic security decisions and how they will affect its rise.

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Win, Lose, or Draw

Domestic Politics and the Crucible of War

Allan C. Stam III

University of Michigan Press, 1999

While the factors affecting the initiation of war have been extensively studied, the factors that determine the outcome of war have been neglected. Using quantitative data and historical illustrations from the early 1800s to the late 1980s, Allan Stam investigates the relative effect on war outcomes of both the choices leaders must make during war and the resources they have at their disposal. Strategy choices, along with decisions about troop levels and defense spending, are not made in a vacuum, according to Stam, but are made in the crucible of domestic politics. Because of domestic political constraints, states must frequently choose less than optimal strategies in the international arena. Stam shows how we must go beyond simply counting resources and look at the process or strategy by which they are employed as the key factor determining who will win.
Challenging the assumptions of many realist and neorealist thinkers on war and interstate conflict, Stam shows how domestic political factors affect the outcome of war. Using a rational choice analysis, Stam looks at the factors that affect the decisionmakers' preferences for different outcomes of military conflict, as well as how the payoffs of those outcomes are affected by both domestic and structural factors. Structural factors, such as the state's population, define a state's power relative to that of other states and will affect the probability of a policy succeeding. Domestic factors, such as the positions taken by domestic political groups, will affect the preferences of the leaders for particular outcomes and their willingness to bear the costs associated with the payoffs and probabilities of the various outcomes.
This book will be of interest to political scientists studying war and conflict in the international system as well as to historians and military strategists interested in understanding the factors that predict the outcome of war.
Allan Stam is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University.

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