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The Presidential Political Center and Foreign Policy: A Critique of the Revisionist and Bureaucratic-Political Orientations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Amos Perlmutter
Amos Perlmutter
Affiliation:
The American University
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Abstract

Fundamental to modern politics is the fact that politics of security and diplomacy are central to society. Historically, foreign and security politics have been the main priorities of the political center, conducted primarily on that level. Since 1945, these political centers have gained predominance in die U.S. In the absence of well-integrated political elites, a highly centralized political party or parties, and powerful and permanent bureaucracies and civil service, the presidential political center has become the pivotal political center with almost exclusive control over foreign affairs and national security. The locus and degree of power widiin the American political and constitutional context, rather than elite orientations and practices, are identified to explain who dominates American foreign policy.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , October 1974 , pp. 87 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1974

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References

1 See analysis in Bottomore, T. B., Elites and Society (New York 1964), 31–41Google Scholar; Parry, Geraint, Political Elites (London 1969), 27–29Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., 20–27.

3 On the writings and critique of the power elite, see Parry's analysis (fn. 1); also Rustow, Dankwart, “The Study of Elites: Who's Who, When, and How,” World Politics, XVIII (July 1966), 690–717CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite (Oxford 1956Google Scholar). Mills was promptly challenged by a very specific group of social and political theorists, the pluralists. These were mainly professional political scientists and sociologists (inaccurately known as the “end-of-ideology” school). The pluralists, in turn, were challenged by the morality contingent, including professionals (political scientists and sociologists), but also by linguists, belle-lettrists, and journalists indignant about the slow process of social justice and an allegedly immoral war. Mills' disciples moved to restate the power-elite theory and applied it to the analyses of security and diplomacy.

5 Ibid., 3–7.

6 See Parry (fn. i), 30–63.

7 Keller, Suzanne, Beyond the Ruling Class (New York 1957Google Scholar), distinguishes between a ruling elite (the elective or political elite) and the strategic elite primarily concerned with administration and technocracy-the elite of merit.

8 Although the field of bureaucratic politics is as old as the seminal studies of Weber and Michels, the political science profession in the United States has its origins with students of public administration and government—Woodrow Wilson, Frank Goodnow, and Bernard Moses, to mention only a few. The new school of bureaucratic politics in political science mainly focuses on the politics and management of foreign affairs. Among the early political scientists and writers were Neustadt, Richard E. (Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership, New York 1950Google Scholar) and Huntington, Samuel P. (The Common Defense, New York 1961Google Scholar). The field of arms control is dominated by political scientists influenced by modern theories of organization and economic management, such as Schelling, Thomas, Arms and Influence (New Haven 1966Google Scholar).

9 Kolko, Gabriel, The Politics of War (New York 1968Google Scholar); Chomsky, Noam, American Power and the New Mandarins (New York 1960Google Scholar).

10 Barnet, Richard J., Roots of War (New York 1972Google Scholar); Stone, I. F., The Hidden History of the Korean War (New York 1952Google Scholar).

11 Rustow (fn. 3), 703; emphasis added.

12 Williams, William A., The Roots of the Modern American Empire (New York 1969Google Scholar).

13 Maier, Charles S., “Revisionism and the Interpretation of Cold War Origins,” Perspectives in American History, iv (1970), 339Google Scholar.

14 See Diamant, Alfred, “The Bureaucratic Model: Max Weber Rejected, Rediscovered, Reformed,” Comparative Public Administration (1959), 59–96Google Scholar.

15 The group includes the professional political scientists Graham Allison and Morton Halperin, who are considered to be the “high priests” of bureaucratic politics. Leslie Gelb should also be mentioned. Interestingly, the moralists I. F. Stone and Richard Barnet have made considerable use of the concept of bureaucratic politics. See Allison, , The Essence of Decision (Boston 1971Google Scholar); Allison, and Halperin, , “Bureaucratic Politics,” World Politics, xxiv (Supplement 1972Google Scholar); Halperin, , Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Brookings, April 1972Google Scholar); and Barnet (fn. 10). In fact, Newhouse, John, in Cold Dawn (New York 1973Google Scholar), identifies bureaucratic politics with the different schools' positions and doctrines on arms control. (Halperin's and Gelb's writings certainly have been influenced by die politics of arms control.)

16 I shall here deal only with key conceptual assumptions.

17 Allison (fn. 15), 63.

18 Maier (fn. 13), 344.

19 See Weber, Max, Economy and Society, ed. Wittich, C. and Roth, G. (Bedminster 1968), I, 212Google Scholar–15.

20 Parsons, Talcott, Structure and Process of Modern Societies (New York 1960) 216Google Scholar, 213.

21 ibid., 216.

22 Parsons' is a narrow definition of the political system, i.e., “government,” which certainly does not include the American political system.

23 I am in debt here to David Rapoport's perceptive analysis of the Federalists on executive power in its civil military context, “Praetorianism: Government without Consensus,” unpub. Ph.D. diss. (University of California, Berkeley 1958), 174.

24 Ibid., 175; emphasis added.

25 See James Meisel, The Myth of the Ruling Class (Ann Arbor 1965); also Parry (fn. I), 31–32.

26 See Eisenstadt, S. N., The Political Systems of Empires (New York 1963Google Scholar).

27 Weber (fn. 19), I, 212–54.

28 See Reedy, George, The Twilight of the Presidency (New York 1970Google Scholar); McPherson, Harry, A Political Education (Boston 1972Google Scholar); Goldman, Eric, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (New York 1969Google Scholar).

29 Kissinger, , “Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy,” Daedalus, vc (April 1966), 344Google Scholar. See also Kissinger, , The Necessity for Choice (New York 1969), 340Google Scholar–58.

30 See Barnet (fn. 10) for an adequate but opinionated review of the types of court rccruitees. Here The Power Elite could be cited as a major source of inspiration.

31 Robert Bowie was a high official in the Eisenhower administration. Samuel Huntington was a Humphrey advisor (1968). Both were members of the Policy Planning Staff of the State Department. Henry Kissinger was President Nixon's National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, and was an advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Edward S. Mason was a close advisor to Secretary McNamara. Thomas C. Schelling was also an advisor to Secretary McNamara.

32 On the conceptual and analytical aspects of support, see Easton, David, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York 1965), 170Google Scholar–89. While I do not accept the conceptual usefulness of this functional analysis, I know of no other author who has posed the problem analytically.

33 Kuhn, Thomas S., “The Structure of Scientific Revolution,” International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, 2nd ed., II, No. 2 (Chicago 1970Google Scholar).