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CIAO DATE: 03/02
Preface
More than 200 years ago the framers of the U.S. Constitution established a system of checks and balances — divisions of responsibility — among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government, to ensure that no single branch would wield too much power. The legislative branch — Congress — makes the law; the executive branch implements it; and the judicial branch interprets it. This process diffuses power widely throughout the federal system.
It often happens that the U.S. President represents one party while the opposition party controls one or both houses of Congress. And even if the majority in Congress belongs to the same political party as the President, Congress still is an independent entity; therefore the President and his cabinet officials must work to persuade legislators to support administration positions.
Because of the Constitution's system of checks and balances, policy is often a reconciliation of differences, a distillation of compromise. This issue of U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda seeks to explain this political dynamic as it unfolds in the foreign policy arena.
Featured in the Focus Section are interviews with a Republican senator and a Democratic representative in Congress — both widely known for their foreign policy expertise, an interview with a former top Clinton administration official responsible for managing White House relations with Congress, and an article by a prominent political scientist explaining the constitutional and historical relationship between the legislative and executive branches of government on foreign policy. Additional articles assess the role of the current Congress in carrying out its foreign policy mandate, describe the impact of lobbyists on foreign policy-making and survey U.S. legislators on the foreign policy concerns of their constituents.