| The founding fathers of America designed the Constitution in a way that the executive branch and the legislative branch would wrestle over the prerogatives of directing foreign policy. However, Congress suffers the institutional disadvantage vis-a-vis the president in that the latter is not only commander in chief, but also enjoys the preponderant personnel, expertise and information advantage. Congressional disadvantage becomes only more conspicuous and fatal when it comes to defense policy making. For one thing, in times of crisis, people would look up to their president for certain action. The effect of rallying around the flag could always induce Congress to fall in line with the administration. For another, composed of two chambers and545members, Congress, representing sometimes overlapping and often contradictory interests, is not in a position for swift response. Therefore, Congress has long been in the shadow when the government is engineering defense policy.Institutional and inherent disadvantages notwithstanding, the long-time (mis)portrayal of Congress has obscured the fact that it has multiple channels, both formal and informal, through which to influence defense policy making. Formally, Congress has been constitutionally designated to raise army, authorize and declare wars, to ratify any treaties and nominations brought up by the executive and above all to control the purse. The power of the purse is the ultimate leverage Congress has to balance against the president. By determining where and for how long the money flows, it determines the direction and scope of a military engagement. Informally, Congress can hold hearings, and pursue investigations into alleged executive misconduct and malfeasance that could generate front-page stories and prime-time broadcasts. Meanwhile, Congress can also require executive reports concerning specific defense issues to counter the effects of information asymmetry. It may also engineer campaigns to mobilize public opinion and to cultivate public support.What’s more, developments both endogenous and exogenous to Congress have given it more leverage in defense policy making. Over the years, Congress has been increasingly more informed and better staffed in defense sphere. Former support mechanisms, like the Congressional Research Services (CRS) and the General Accounting Office (GAO), have been upgraded. Also, such new institutions as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) have been designed to make Congress further independent of the executive in information gathering and assessing. Procedural changes in the budget process also provided another channel for Congress to check the president. Relevant developments exogenous to Congress include firstly, more organized interest with a stake in defense policy are willing to put their weight behind Congress; secondly, a fragile domestic economy, coupled with an increasingly insecure status in the international arena, has presented more incentives for Congress to be more active and assertive.This paper specifically focuses on Congress and defense policy making in the context of divided government, which is arguably another factor that prompts Congressional activism. Since the end of the Second World War, divided government has become a norm. Facing a president from the opposite party, it is only reasonable to speculate that Congress should have more incentives to challenge the executive in defense policy. Scholarly attention has been devoted to assessing the relationship between divided government and legislative productivity. Considerable literature has been generated with overlapping findings as well as contradictory arguments. However, the relationship between divided government and defense policy making has been left inadequately explored. In an effort to put Congressional defense policy behavior into perspective, the paper examines how Congressional activism changes over time and with different types of party control. It asks firstly, given the reasons stated above, is Congress becoming more active in defense policy making over time? Secondly, does divided government make a difference in Congressional defense policy behavior? Or to be more specific, is divided government associated with more Congressional defense policy activism? Congressional activism is measured by two indicators:Congressional changes in presidential defense budget requests and oversight hearings on defense policy. The time period it investigates is from2001to2011. This particular period is chosen because, firstly, it saw the disastrous9/11attack and the ensuing two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively, which have ever since transformed the landscape of American defense policy and made defense policy making a focal point on Congressional agenda; secondly, this period experienced both divided and unified government, which makes comparative study possible; last but not least, it has received relatively less scholarly attention.In order to answer these two questions, this paper proposes two hypotheses: From2001to2011, the passage of time sees larger Congressional changes in presidential defense spending requests and oversight hearings; from2001to2011, divided government is associated with larger Congressional changes in presidential defense spending requests and more oversight hearings than unified government. Drawing on the data from the Congressional Quarterly Almanac and the United States Governmental Printing Office, this paper tests the two hypotheses respectively and comes to the conclusion that while for the period of interest, Congress did become more active over time, divided government did not make a difference in influencing Congressional defense policy behavior. Concurring with Mayhew’s finding, this paper, inspired by Mayhew’s explanations, also make some speculations on the non-pattern specific to this period:bipartisanship still prevailed at times of crisis; the event versus non-event pattern cut across the divided versus unified government pattern and figures more prominently in explaining Congressional defense policy behavior; the fact that the sample is too small and thus ridden with irregular values prevents the divided and unified government pattern from making a difference.This study claims originality and significance in that it tries to fill the vacancies in existing literature by venturing into the less explored field and the less visited years. |
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