Watchdogs on the Hill: The Decline of Congressional Oversight of U.S. Foreign Relations by Linda L. Fowler

Author:Linda L. Fowler [Fowler, Linda L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: International Relations, Legislative Branch, Democracy, United States, Political Ideologies, 20th Century, Political Science, Executive Branch, American Government, History, General
ISBN: 9780691151625
Google: gWeYDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 23744500
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2015-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

CONCLUSION

The patterns of oversight activity of the Senate’s national security committees have consequences for democratic politics and for the study of Congress. Lawmakers and citizens require information to evaluate how the president exercises the executive’s vast discretion over national security, but they depend upon specialized congressional committees to gather it. Senate committees have their own agendas as a result of the committee assignment process that promotes internal consensus about priorities and the means of achieving them. Over the sixty-two years of the study, the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees pursued consistent strategies in using oversight to attain their respective goals of support for the military and public debate about foreign policy. The frequency of oversight, the record of public and closed sessions, the comparison with budget inquiries, and the lack of depth for individual hearings by Armed Services and Foreign Relations thus indicate a mismatch between the incentives that guide committee behavior and the needs of both Congress and the public.

The theoretical expectations based on the distinctiveness and relative autonomy of Senate committees do a good job of explaining variation in national security oversight over time and between committees. Substantively, the results indicate that divided government did not impact the public hearing oversight activity of Senate Armed Services, but did influence its propensity for hearings behind closed doors, while the opposite pattern occurred for Foreign Relations. In addition, the president’s initiation of the use of force prompted the former to increase oversight, while exerting little effect on Foreign Relations. Moreover, the findings demonstrate substantial differences in the committees’ propensity for budget hearings, which constrained the likelihood of oversight by Armed Services and facilitated review by Foreign Relations. Overall, the analysis confirms the importance of committee workloads discussed in Chapter 3 in accentuating competition for space on the committees’ calendars.

Critics of Congress frequently have pointed to inadequate oversight as a major failing of the institution, particularly with respect to matters of war and diplomacy. Several different factors raise concerns about both the quantity and the relevance of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees’ oversight activity during the sixty-two years of the study. Together, the results in this chapter highlight deficiencies in national security oversight, not just in terms of quantity, but also in terms of the types of presidential decisions that committee members subjected to public review.

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