War Power Moves: Executive Incentives for Unilateral Action

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: Mounting anxieties about executive overreach in the Global War on Terrorism have reinvigorated interest in the study of presidential war powers. In historical perspective, presidents have frequently directed the use of military force without explicit permission from Congress. Yet, presidents still court legislative approval on select occasions. Why do presidents sometimes seek congressional authorization and other times -- indeed, most of the time -- do not? To investigate the puzzle, this thesis develops a two-actor game with two decision nodes; analyzes historical data of U.S. force deployments from 1798 to 2000; and, leveraging archival sources, conducts case studies of the Korean War, Vietnam War, and Persian Gulf War. The research finds that a president’s decision to take unilateral military action rests along three dimensions: credibility, legislative limits, and military capabilities. In general, as the costs along these dimensions decrease, the president is more inclined to use military force without congressional approval. Overall, however, the principal issue the president faces when assessing the costs of unilateral action is how he expects the pivotal member of Congress to behave.

Type of resource	text
Date created	2019

Subject	Center for International Security and Cooperation
Subject	Presidency
Subject	U.S. Foreign Policy
Subject	War Powers
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/mf896dq3875

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred Citation: Irajpanah, Katherine. 2019. War Power Moves: Executive Incentives for Unilateral Action. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/mf896dq3875

Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies, Theses

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