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Ren is an upcoming third year student at the London School of Economics and Political Science (expected graduation: June 2023). She majors in International Relations and History. Her research interests include U.S.-China relations, Sino-Soviet relations, and Modern East Asian History.

 

Abstract


This essay examines the influence of leaders and ideas in shaping foreign policy by analyzing the United States’ (U.S.’) politics and foreign policy administrations—with special attention to former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden’s foreign policy initiatives and the ideas of national exceptionalism and exclusion that are shaping the U.S. and its relations with the People's Republic of China today. This paper argues that within liberal democracies, such ideas are not passive backdrops to foreign policy; rather, ideas have a larger effect on FPDM than individual leaders could ever hope to possess. Connections between FPDM and ideas should thus be examined further in the IR literature to more clearly determine how they forge contemporary politics, especially when it comes to the potentially dangerous role of nationalism engendered by longstanding cultural symbols and myths. The understanding of the history of a nation’s ideas alongside contemporary trends is thus the first step in optimizing the interplay between individual leaders and prevailing ideologies in FPDM.

 

Introduction


A political slogan coined by Carol Hanisch during the women’s liberation movement (WLM) of the 1960s and 1970s states that “the personal is political” (Hanisch 1970). However, one might argue it is equally true that “the political is personal.” In other words, the personal and political spheres coexist both in everyday contexts and at the nexus of public policy, and the leadership of a nation is a confluence of personalities and prevailing ideas. Just as differences in the personalities of public figures affect foreign policy decision-making (FPDM), policymakers often feel compelled to uphold a more unified representation of ideological strands within their party and homeland in order to engage with foreign governments that may subscribe to dissimilar political and cultural ideas (Jorgensen 2019, 68). This essay argues that within democratic states, such ideas are not passive backdrops to foreign policy; rather, ideas have a larger effect on FPDM than individual leaders could ever hope to possess. To explore this point of view, this paper uses content analysis to examine events involving the United States’ (U.S.’) politics and foreign policy administrations—with special attention to former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden’s foreign policy initiatives and the ideas that are shaping the U.S. and its relations with the PRC today. This paper concludes that while national leaders may influence the effect of various ideas, the ideologies themselves ultimately take precedence during FPDM in liberal-democratic societies.

Can ideas truly be more politically influential than leaders? In the news article “Welcome to Joe Biden’s Somalia War,” readers can examine how ideas interact with FPDM. The author, Alexander Ward, states the following: “President Joe Biden’s war in Somalia has begun, and he didn’t even launch it.” The article goes on to detail the main storyline:

On Tuesday, U.S. Africa Command chief Gen. Stephen Townsend authorized a single drone strike against al-Shabaab militants attacking an American-trained elite Somali force known as the Danab. While no U.S. troops accompanied the Somalis during the operation near Galkayo, Pentagon spokesperson Cindi King told NatSec Daily that Townsend has the authority under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter “to conduct collective self-defense of partner forces.” “There was an imminent threat,” King said, so Townsend ordered the hit with the Somali government’s approval—but without consulting with the White House (Ward 2021).

The statement is an interesting representation of foreign policy, as well as the ideological definition of “collective self-defense.” As the very first U.S. airstrike in Somalia since President Biden came to office in 2021, it was not initiated by the president but rather by the American-trained Somali commando forces who took it upon themselves to launch the self-defense initiative (Everstine 2021). In this instance, the president had no influence on a military operation under the auspices of U.S. foreign policy; ideological and legal structures certified it. According to Jerel Rosati, there are three main sources of a president’s influence: “the bargaining advantages inherent in the job, professional reputation, and public prestige” (Rosati 1981, 234). While his or her power must be worked for and gained through the trust of the citizens, the president must also balance differing ideas in order to engage with the public and lead historically formulated institutions. How do ideas shape a nation’s foreign policies in such a way that they legitimize a kinetic strike without the approval of the nation’s commander-in-chief? And where does the authority in the nation’s decision-making process ultimately lie?

 

Ideas and FPDM Overview


Although the structure of the U.S. government is founded on a fixed constitution, the citizens’ contemporary social patterns have significantly shaped the nation and its leadership. The U.S. polity is mostly divided between the Democratic and Republican parties, and the presidential candidates of each are required to respond to numerous factors manifested by contemporary ideology (Tama 2015). Even though the U.S. places a heavy emphasis on democracy as its main system of operation, the citizens do not directly vote for the country’s local and international policies; instead, they elect a representative to negotiate their ideas during the policymaking process (Lee, Moretti, and Butler 2004, 832). In convincing the U.S. citizens of their trustworthiness, the Biden-Harris campaign relied on democratic and progressive ideas. Since “political leadership is portrayed in terms of the ability to persuade and to achieve consensus among policymakers,” the need for a consensus of ideas applies to local and foreign policymaking (Alden and Aran 2017, 46). While the U.S. is committed to democracy during international engagements, it would be advantageous to understand the ideological and cultural compositions of the governments that the nation interacts with.

What are ideas, and what is their role in defining political identity and action? As a system of ideas and ideals that are historically grounded in generational belief systems, ideology mobilizes a group of ideas that lead to social value, social action, and collective cohesion (Gerring 1997, 979). However, there is not much research on the ways in which ideas influence foreign policy. Paul Kisak argues in Political Ideologies: “The Many Ways of Allocating Power” that a political ideology is “a certain ethical set of ideals, principles, doctrines, myths or symbols of a social movement, institution, class and or large group that explains how society should work and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order” (Kisak 2016, 35). As every nation possesses a unique history, culture, and approach to interacting with other cultures, it is no surprise that the ideas of the collective are inherently grounded in a nation’s political calculus, or that “myths” and “symbols of a social movement” are some of the most instrumental elements in shaping a nation’s foreign policy (Hixson 2009, 271). As such, historical factors are essential in placing contemporary issues and policy decisions under a sharper lens. The U.S. claims to be the largest democratic power in the world today, thus its ideas of

what democracy should be shape its relationships with other nations. U.S. politicians, like all world leaders, use myths from their nation’s cultural past to unify the present citizenry’s goals, emphasize individual civil liberties, and make their ideas seem more attractive in the eyes of the public (Restad 2012, 61). Regardless of the party they represent, political leaders will always try to convince constituents that the ideological platforms they represent are for the benefit of the people.

 

The Trump and Biden Administrations and their Foreign Engagements


Gauging the 2020 presidential campaign of Joe Biden and his presidency, the American public did not need much convincing that the nation required a major change following the Trump administration. Then-Democratic presidential primary candidate Biden outlined on his official campaign website the ways in which his administration would strengthen American global leadership, in addition to including a foreign policy plan as a major pillar of his platform (Biden 2019). When viewers opened the website, the first thing they saw was a YouTube video of Biden delivering his foreign policy address in New York City. Beneath the video was a link to the manifesto titled “Why America Must Lead Again,” a sardonic reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again.” It is interesting to note that Biden used this title, considering how he began his office during a very troubling time in a country beset by social turmoil from Trump’s presidency, the coronavirus pandemic (Biden 2020). The one constant in the Biden-Harris campaign was the mention of several flaws from Trump’s presidency and how they must work tirelessly to repair America’s damaged reputation in a broken global ecosystem.

An example of how ideas are preeminent in FPDM emerges in reporter Andrew Restuccia’s examination of the Trump-Pence administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement—a global climate awareness initiative agreed upon by 195 participants at the UNFCCC conference and the European Union to keep the world’s climate and temperature at safe, habitable levels—in 2017. Despite beginning the process of withdrawing from this agreement, the administration promised to continue their efforts toward solving climate change issues (Restuccia 2017). The Trump-Pence administration’s position on climate change—being aligned the interests of big business and the “America first” mentality—clearly did not align with the global consensus. On the other hand, President Biden opted to rejoin the Paris Agreement in the first days of his administration since the Democrats were commitment to curb the effects of climate change and facilitate international collaboration (Biden 2021a).

The article, “Who Makes Foreign Policy Decisions and How: An Empirical Theory,reminds us that while ideas have a strong impact on policymaking, their implementation is not a simple, single-step process. Since there are multiple levels of bureaucracy and the individuals within them, decisions must traverse those levels and individuals to become law, particularly decisions pertaining to foreign policy. Authors Margaret and Charles Hermann touch upon the fact that foreign policy creation and the processes involved have a very “elusive nature” (Hermann and Hermann 1989, 362). The procedure to determine the actual issues and the appropriate responses are not well-defined and could therefore take a very long time to carry out. A decision is typically subjected to the scrutiny of various levels of bureaucracy and encounters multiple opposing ideas that could potentially serve as obstacles to its implementation. In a majority of cases, the passed law seen by the public does not accurately represent the intricacy behind the FPDM process (Art 1973, 485). The obstruction that the Trump Administration faced in regard to its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement represents an obstruction to policy implementation by bureaucratic structures based on people and ideas (Johnson 2019).

 

U.S. Ideas, COVID-19, and Foreign Policymaking


In democratic states such as the U.S., ideas have more influence than leaders when it comes to public support: candidates running for office need to present a plethora of ideas in order to gain the public’s trust. When it comes to foreign policy, one country’s ideas of its end goals should not be the leading factor in international relations. As Ahmed notes, the purpose of foreign policy is to create a more prosperous, interactive world where all countries have equal rights (Ahmed 2020, 787). A country that is caught up in its past ideas and prejudices will find it difficult to work together with other nations in the present. The ideas’ roots could be the source problem, especially if no one knows where the idea originated from and why the results of the idea should be accepted. As mentioned above, ideas themselves are kept alive by social movements and myths that encourage national exceptionalism and influence foreign policy. In other words, cultural narratives encourage people to see their place of origin as special and discrete from those of other nations (Walt 2011, 73-4). Yet, there are ways to be proud of one’s origins without seeing others as separate, beneath, or apart from oneself. Michael Hunt, the author of Ideology and US Foreign Policy, believes that it is the U.S. sense of exceptionalism or “the myth of America’s uniqueness as a nation and a force in the world” is the greatest hindrance to a more rational foreign policy (Hunt 1987, 3). Despite being a great tool for social unity, nationalism or an overtly arrogant sense of exceptionalism can lead to serious repercussions.

While such ideologies trump individual leaders in their impact on FPDM, the role of the political leader is critical in gauging the level of restraint on nationalism required in given contexts, in addition to remembering its potential pitfalls when it comes to passing decisions on foreign policy.

The initial U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, for example, has exposed many weaknesses of America’s federal government. Notably, Trump exploited nationalistic sentiments to cover for those weaknesses when he immediately blamed China for the spread of the pandemic. His derisive public statements instantly went viral: calling the virus “Kung Flu” or the “China Plague” among other offensive epithets (Cherry-Smith 2020). As a result of this rhetoric, Chinese Americans experienced increasing anti-Asian prejudice and racism. Anyone who fits the racialized image of Asian—Thai, Filipino, Korean, etc.—could have equally become a victim of the us-versus-them polarization of culture along ethnic lines (Gover, Harper, and Langton 2020, 648). To counter the growing number of hate crimes against Asian Americans, people engaged social media platforms with the hashtag “StopAsianHate.” Hate crimes spiked so severely in 2021 that Biden eventually signed into law the COVID-19 Hate Crime Act, which prioritizes all hate crimes in the legal system of retribution (Biden 2021b). Although the waves of anti-Asian racism have risen prior to pandemic, it is a prime example of how internalized ideas of an “exceptional” nation may lead to government responses that exacerbate misunderstandings and antagonism towards other cultures, which in turn, cause the people “under threat” to respond with extreme actions (i.e., physical violence).

While the whole world is struggling to find a way out of the pandemic, leaders face increasing difficulties to manage a country. One of the major pillars of the Biden-Harris campaign’s platforms was the U.S. response to the coronavirus, given that they had to convince the public that they would find the best methods to combat the pandemic. As promised, Biden moved quickly to make vaccines available for all Americans and even announced a global vaccine sharing plan (Biden 2021c). With ever more new variants of COVID-19 on the rise, U.S. leaders find themselves in a deeper ideological and social war between unvaccinated individuals and the search for a solution to prevent further casualties. These actions to help with the global distribution of vaccines underscore that the power of ideas over individuals in shaping both foreign and domestic policy is relative: national leaders can harness the power of ideas like American exceptionalism in positive ways, promoting ideas of unity, not separation or international division—by framing the pandemic as a global issue requiring a global solution (Runde, Savoy, and Staghun 2021).

Though the international status of the U.S. has improved since the advent of the Biden-Harris Administration, there is still much to be desired in its foreign policy. In June 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris took her first overseas trip, during which she told would-be Guatemalan migrants not to come to the U.S.-Mexico border. The public remembers the time during the campaign when Harris promised to be sensitive towards immigration policies; unfortunately, it seems that the influences from ideas about nationalist border protection and the recent influx of migrants have overtaken that promise (Kumar 2021).

Furthermore, another major issue with Biden’s foreign policies lies in the U.S. relations With China. The Biden Administration claims that their primary foreign policy goal right now is to “balance” China, viewing the latter as one of the largest geopolitical threats to its security (Solana and Bregolat 2021). However, U.S.-China relations have been strained since long before Biden came into office, and the coronavirus pandemic and increasing visibility of the Chinese government have only intensified these negative associations. Former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has spoken at length about the need to repair Sino-U.S. relations if they are to avoid war or further political disunion. Sanders wrote an article titled Washington’s Dangerous New Consensus on China, where he mentions that the problems of “climate change, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, massive economic inequality, terrorism, corruption, authoritarianism” are not just U.S. problems but global issues that require cooperation among great powers to come up with global solutions (Sanders 2021). Despite the U.S. and China’s disagreement over major issues such as governance and human rights, FPDM should be a space that works out differences in favor of global solutions.

 

Conclusion


All in all, ideas combine the collective desires of the public and the historic responsibility that leaders must shoulder in this contemporary world; consequently, the correlation between public desires and leadership responsibilities must be acknowledged before foreign policies are made. By examining FPDM of the Trump and Biden administration amid the coronavirus pandemic, and its implications on U.S.-China relations, one can conclude that the ideas of national exceptionalism and exclusion have long defined U.S. foreign policy and influenced individual leaders. In order to optimize this longstanding trend, more progressive administrations such as Biden’s must take greater initiatives towards harnessing their power in ways that benefit both the U.S. and the international community. Despite the Biden-Harris Administration’s success in transforming several policies for the better, it is remains subject to the potentially destructive influence of ideas in shaping foreign policy as it works towards greater interdependence with other nations. Connections between FPDM and ideas should thus be examined further in the IR literature to more clearly determine how they forge contemporary politics, especially when it comes to the potentially dangerous role of nationalism engendered by longstanding cultural symbols and myths. Ultimately, understanding the history of a nation’s ideas alongside contemporary trends is the first step in optimizing the interplay between individual leaders and prevailing ideologies in FPDM. As the personal and political spheres coexist at the nexus of FPDM, the national leadership remains a confluence of personalities and prevailing ideas.

 

Bibliography


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Decision-Making in U.S. Foreign Policy: Leaders and Ideas