The Multiple Presidencies Thesis

The Multiple Presidencies Thesis states that
presidential-congressional foreign policy relations
are best viewed as differential sets of issue area
relationships. These issue areas include national
security, domestic security, diplomacy, trade,
foreign aid, and immigration. The proximity of the
issue area to an institutional center of power is
determinative of where the power lies in that
relationship. In the high politics issue areas of
national security, domestic security, and diplomacy a
presidency dominated policy making dynamic exists.
Meanwhile, those issue areas associated with a low
politics of trade, foreign aid, and immigration place
the Congress in a place of power relative to the
presidency. The reasons for this are two-fold. First,
the executive branch has a constitutional-historical
role for autonomy in the issues of war and peace.
Second, the Congress is more domestically focused.
Thus, issue areas of foreign policy which are more
intermestic in their foundation will allow the
Congress to assert greater power in its relationship
with the president. Finally, history itself either
promotes or demotes one actor or another in the
conduct of foreign affairs.

Autorentext
Matthew M. Caverly was born on May 6, 1971 in Woodruff, Wisconsin. In 2001, he received his master's in Political Science with a graduate minor in History and in 2008 a Ph.D. in Political Science.