Party Competition, Electoral Cycles, and US Relations with Foreign Adversaries

• In Event: Searching for the Water’s Edge: Polarization and Foreign Policy

Abstract

There is considerable debate over the extent to which American foreign policy is actually polarizing. One possible reason for scholarly disagreement is that the effects of heightened partisan competition on foreign policy are not straightforward because many salient debates in foreign affairs do not map cleanly to an ideological divide. This paper argues that increased partisanship that coincides with electoral cycles extends into foreign affairs in distinct ways. First, heightened partisan competition leads to the standard “divergence” characteristic of ideological polarization when parties ex ante disagree on the status quo policy. Second, parties engage in “outbidding” when they agree on a need to deviate from status quo policy and wish to portray the opposite party as still upholding the status quo. Third, when only one party is internally divided on an issue, the opposite party engages in a “wedging” strategy to draw attention to those divisions. This paper traces the micro foundations of these dynamics with application to how the US manages different bilateral relationships with a set of foreign adversaries. It draws on evidence from public opinion data, as well as speech and social media data from political leaders during recent election campaigns.

Author

• Rachel Maureen Myrick, Duke University