The Nature Of Bipartisan Struggles Under The Competition Between The White House And The Congress For The Power Of Foreign Affairs From 1995 To 1999 During Clinton Administration

The duration from 1995 to 1999 was the middle four years of Clinton Presidency with neither leftover problems from the former Bush Presidency nor the neglect of diplomacy caused by the preparations from all walks of life for the next presidential election in the last two years of Clinton administration. Hence, relatively speaking much attention has been paid to foreign affairs of the United States in this period. What is noteworthy is that the 104 th and 105 th Congresses during this period were factually manipulated by the Republican Party due to its overwhelming majority both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. Besides, it was also the boss of the diplomacy-related subcommittees in the Congress. The Republican Party collided with the Democratic Party because the former had a belief in isolationism, realism and conservatism while the latter worshipped the contrasted internationalism, idealism and liberalism. Moreover, some tough Republicans were determined to be more powerful for this was the first time that they had become the majority in the Congress for several decades. Therefore, these two parties launched a fierce competition driven by the political eagerness for more power influences and by their respective pillar creeds which triggered a row of bipartisan conflicts.The competition between the White House and the Congress for the power of foreign affairs was a longstanding character of American diplomacy and public wisdoms in the academic field always attributed the superficial divergences between the President and the decision of the Congress to the struggles between the White House and the Congress once the President made an order which was contrary to that of the Congress. However, the President himself had a partisan membership as well and if most Congressmen regardless of the partisan belonging took one side and the President took another, it was struggles between the executive branch and the legislative branch; but if the side was taken by party division and the President stood together with the Congressmen who belonged to the same party as him and members in the other party supported their own ideas, then it was in essence the bipartisan conflicts rather than the presidential-congressional struggles although it sometimes seemed to be so.This thesis aims to argue that the nature of the phenomenon of the competition between the White House and the Congress for the power of foreign affairs from 1995 to 1999 during Clinton Administration is the rooted struggles between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in virtue of the intensive analysis of the original documents and data. To prove the argument, the author academically chooses three aspects which are all impressive and irreplaceable pillars of American diplomacy, namely the ratification of international treaties in Senate, the resetting of administrative organizations related to foreign affairs, and the actual coping-with of the concrete diplomatic events.