Chapter 7 > The President's Foreign Policy Performance >The Makers of Foreign Policy: How Much Influence?

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The Makers of Foreign Policy: How Much Influence?

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the public has accepted President Bush’s strong assertions of executive power in conducting American foreign policy and has accepted a less influential role for Congress. On a scale running from 0 (“not at all influential”) to 10 (“extremely influential”) about how much influence various people or groups have on U.S. foreign policy, the proportion of Americans who estimate that the president is a 10, or “extremely influential” over foreign policy (27%), is more than double that for any other group or individual inquired about (just 13% say Congress is extremely influential). The president’s mean rating on the scale is 7.7, while Congress rates a 6.9. The public’s average rating for the secretary of defense as influential in foreign policy is 7.0, for the secretary of state is 6.6, for interest groups is 5.7, and for the American public is 4.5 (see Figure 7-2).

Strikingly, when the same scale is used to judge how much influence the public thinks these people or groups should have on U.S. foreign policy, the president’s average rating rises significantly to 8.2. The proportion thinking that the president should be extremely influential (10) over foreign policy rises sharply to 40%, 13 points higher than the proportion thinking he is now extremely influential. The ratings for Congress, the secretary of defense, and the secretary of state (despite Colin Powell’s very high thermometer score) rise only slightly.

On another question, the proportion of Americans who say that Congress is playing “too weak” a role in determining foreign policy compared to the role of the president has fallen to 21%, its lowest level since it hit a high point during the constitutional crisis of 1974. The proportion seeing the legislative branch’s role as “about right” has risen to 49%, its highest level since 1974.

In short, the public appears willing to grant President Bush abundant power to take the initiative in foreign affairs, but so far most Americans are not terribly impressed with how well his administration has handled a number of problems.

Two other points stand out when comparing the public’s assessment of how much influence various people and groups have now over foreign policy with how much influence they should have. The public’s average rating of how much influence the American public itself should have, 7.4, is sharply higher than its rating of how much influence it actually has now (4.5), and higher than that for any other group or individual except the president. This suggests that the American public does not necessarily feel that their views on foreign policy are being fully represented. And the public would like interest groups to have substantially less influence (4.4) than they are seen to have now (5.7).