Who has the primary advantage in foreign policymaking, Congress or the president, and why? What formal mechanisms can Congressuse to check presidential foreign policymaking power?How successful hasCongress been in using those methods?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The ideal answer should:
a. Discuss that presidents often have a huge institutional advantage over Congress when it comes to foreign policy, primarily because they have access to information that Congress lacks and because they set the terms of military interventions, to which Congress is often forced to only react with either support or opposition.
b.Explain how Congress has fourformal methods for checking presidents' actions:(1 ) their control over appropriations, which can allow them to deescalate a conflict by slowly defunding it(e.g., thesupplemental foreign assistance appropriations act during the Vietnam War);(2 ) passing traditional legislationaimed at redirecting American foreign policy (e.g., the Neutrality Acts); (3 ) using the appointment process to control occupants in key foreign policy positions in the bureaucracy (e.g., the resistance to the confirmation of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations); and (4 ) using congressional hearings and delegations to exercise oversight and to critique US foreign policy actions(e.g., the Church committee).
c. Evaluate congressional success by noting that although presidents still maintain the upper hand,often the mere threat of congressional action is enough to deter presidents from pursuing especially controversial foreign policy actions.