An Unchained Dog of War: An Examination of the Lack of Constraint on Presidential Uses of Force in the Modern Era

Nicholas Creel

Defence and Peace Economics, 2023, vol. 34, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Research on the constraint President’s face in matters of foreign policy is generally of the view that they are largely free to do as they please. Some research however posits that Congressional constrain on the executive is in fact much larger than it is given credit for. Using their research as a jumping off point, I re-examine this matter by asking when the President will seek ex ante Congressional authorization for the use of force. I estimate this potential effect of Congressional constraint on the President by looking at US initiated militarized interstate disputes with at least one fatality. In so doing, it is demonstrated that no Congressional constrain exists in this regard; the President rarely seeks ex ante authorization for the use of force and is therefore not truly constrained in its use. In fact, evidence is brought to bear that if anything the diversionary theory of war initiation may hold water; inflation is shown herein to be negatively linked to ex ante Congressional authorization for the use of force. It seems as though the President is less likely to ask Congress for permission to conduct deadly military operations when inflation is high.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10242694.2021.2001620 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:defpea:v:34:y:2023:i:1:p:1-12

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/GDPE20

DOI: 10.1080/10242694.2021.2001620

Access Statistics for this article

Defence and Peace Economics is currently edited by Professor Keith Hartley

More articles in Defence and Peace Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().