Legislating foreign policy: The role of Congress in making United States foreign policy toward the Middle East (1989--2000)

American diplomatic and military involvement in the Middle East provided Congress with the opportunity to play a number of roles in making U.S. foreign policy toward that region. The main objective of my dissertation is to identify these different roles, and to provide an explanation as to when and why Congress played these roles. This study identifies five main roles that Congress has played in foreign policy. These are: collaboration, direction, acquiescence, declaration, and oversight. These roles represent the dependent variables. The study employs an integrative framework to explain congressional roles. This framework goes beyond the simplistic explanation of electoral factors and the influence of special interest groups, to place our understanding of congressional roles in a more broader context that includes other factors such as: policy substance, executive-legislative relations, and foreign policy leadership. These explanatory factors represent the independent variables.; The study examines the relationship between the dependent and independent variables in light of five major cases; aid to the Middle East, policy toward the Palestine Liberation Organization, policy toward Jerusalem, policy toward Iraq, and policy toward Iran. The study's timeframe extends from the 101 st Congress (1989/1990) to the 106th Congress (1999/2000).; The findings of the study show that Congress has often collaborated with the administration on Middle East policy, notably, when there was an agreement between the two institutions on general policy objectives. Lobbying of special interest groups also facilitated this collaboration. Congress tended to direct policy when some of the following factors existed: policy disagreement with the administration, a need to fill a policy vacuum, strong congressional leadership, strong lobbying of special interest groups, and the existence of a divided government. As for acquiescence, the study found that Congress tends to acquiesce when there is a strong presidential leadership, and when there is a strong public opinion supporting the President's position. The study found correlation between increased oversight activities and policy disagreement, divided government and the existence of congressional committees' leadership with interest in the policy matter. The study also found correlation between increased policy declaration and congressional committee leadership and interest groups lobbying.