The President and the Parties’ Ideologies:
Party Ideas about Foreign Policy Since 1900
VERLAN LEWIS
Throughout U.S. history, the two major political parties have switched positions many times on a
variety of issues, including whether the United States should intervene more or less in foreign affairs. Are
these changes simply the product of historical contingency, or are there structural factors at work that can
help explain these developments? This article finds that change in party control of the presidency can help
explain change in party ideologies with respect to foreign policy. Parties in long-term control of the presiden-
cy tend to change their ideology in ways that call for more foreign intervention, while parties in opposition
to the presidency tend to change their ideology in ways that call for less foreign intervention.
Keywords: American presidency, political parties, ideology, foreign policy, foreign
intervention, historical institutionalism
Introduction
In the 2000 U.S. presidential debates, George W. Bush criticized Vice President Al
Gore for his role in the Clinton administration’s foreign interventionism. Governor Bush
pledged, instead, to have a “humble” foreign policy that would be “judicious in its use” of
the American military. A president-elect Bush would differ from the Democratic admin-
istration by not “over-committing our military around the world,” and by not engaging
in a costly, “nation-building mission” that left the invaded country no better off than it
was before (Bush 2000). The foreign policy positions of the two candidates were not sur-
prising. They represented the two different ideologies of the parties during the Clinton
administration: Democrats defending U.S. intervention in world affairs and Republicans
arguing for less intervention (Schlesinger 1995).
From our contemporary standpoint, we know that the parties changed positions in
the ensuing years. Just a few years later, the Democratic Party was criticizing Republicans
for reckless war making, “over-committing our military around the world,” a foolish
“nation-building mission,” and wasting American money and lives. This change was not
only reflected in the discourse of party elites, but also in the attitudes of ordinary party
identifiers. The American National Election Studies (ANES) regularly asks Americans
whether they agree or disagree with the statement that “this country would be better off
if we just stayed home and did not concern ourselves with problems in other parts of the
world.” In 1998, more Democrats than Republicans gave the interventionist response,
Verlan Lewis is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University
whose research focuses on American political institutions, thought, and development.
Presidential Studies Quarterly
Vol. 47, No. 1, March 2017, 27–61
27
DOI: 10.1111/psq.12345
V
C
2016 Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress
but by 2002, significantly more Republicans than Democrats gave the interventionist
response.
This evolution in Republican Party ideology, becoming relatively more interven-
tionist under Bush, and the corresponding change in the Democratic Party, becoming rel-
atively less interventionist, is just one of numerous instances in American political
history of the two major parties changing their positions, rhetoric, and ideologies with
regard to foreign policy. As students of American politics, how should we understand
these developments? Are there any structural factors at work that can help explain when,
why, and how party positions, rhetoric, and ideas change over time? Or, are these changes
simply the product of historical contingency? This article seeks to answer those questions
and finds that, in general, parties in long-term control of the presidency tend to become
more interventionist on foreign policy while parties in opposition tend to become less
interventionist.
Previous Findings
Most scholars who have studied American party ideologies have focused on party
ideas about “economic redistribution” or how active the federal government should be in
managing the economy—what spatial modelers often call the “first dimension” of politi-
cal ideology. This article instead focuses on party ideas about foreign policy, which have
received less attention from students of American political parties and ideologies.
1
Those
who have studied ideas about foreign policy have drawn a number of important conclu-
sions, but none have tried to explain how party ideologies evolve.
For example, scholars of international relations have focused on the importance of
elite ideology in determining American foreign policy, but have paid less attention to
parties (Holsti 2006; Nau 2013). Early public opinion scholarship paid attention to par-
ties, but argued that American attitudes toward foreign policy were largely incoherent:
they lacked “intellectual structure and factual content” (Almond 1950, 56),
2
and they
lacked ideological constraint (Campbell, Converse et al. 1960; Converse 1964). While
more recent scholars have admitted that ideology matters in determining who gets
elected and what foreign policies government officials pursue (Hurwitz and Peffley 1987;
Gries 2014), this scholarship, in general, takes a snapshot view of parties, ideology, and
foreign policy, rather than a moving picture view.
3
The scholarship that has examined
party ideas about foreign policy over time has argued for stasis rather than dynamism
(Dueck 2010). This article adds to this literature by focusing on the changes we observe in
party ideologies with respect to foreign policy.
1. One myth that has limited modern scholarship on party ideologies concerning foreign policy is
the idea that “party lines stop at the water’s edge” (T. Roosevelt 1907). This phrase, a wishful thought coined
by President Theodore Roosevelt and popularized in the 1948 presidential campaign by President Truman
and Senator Vandenberg, has been taken by many as a description of normal American politics (Page and Bou-
ton 2006; Busby, Monten, and Inboden 2012)—which has only recently been violated (Lieber 2014; Myre
2015). In truth, as this paper will show, this phrase rarely describes the nature of American party politics.
2. See also Lippmann (1955).
3. These terms are borrowed from Pierson (2004).
28 | LEWIS
Article Outline
This article improves our understanding of American party ideology development
in two ways. First, it emphasizes the analytical and conceptual insight that ideologies are
endogenous structures subject to change over time by political actors. By reminding our-
selves of this fact, we can better understand what ideologies are, what they do, and how
they evolve. Second, once we understand that ideologies—including party ideologies—
can, and do, change, this article points out that a polity-centered theory can help explain
how and why party ideologies evolve. In particular, this article shows how party control
of the presidency influences change in party theories of foreign intervention.
In making these two contributions, this article will proceed as follows. The next
section explains how we should conceptualize party ideology development, and why this
is important. The following section outlines a theory to explain variation in party ideolo-
gies over time and derives a hypothesis from this theory with regard to foreign policy.
The rest of the sections test this hypothesis by examining nine observations that cover
American history since 1900.
Conceptualizing Party Ideology Development
Ideologies are not static, philosophical structures that exist eternally, and immuta-
bly, in the realm of Platonic forms. Instead, ideologies are social and political constructs
that are constantly subject to change. For example, famously, in the nineteenth century
liberalism usually referred to laissez faire free market policies, but in the twentieth centu-
ry liberalism came to represent government intervention in the economy. In the United
States, Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) was crucial in changing the meaning of liberalism in
this way (Rotunda 1986). To take another example, in terms of foreign policy, in the
1930s–40s “conservatism” referred to “America first” isolationism, while “liberalism”
referred to hawkish internationalism. In the 1970s, “conservatism” had come to represent
hawkish internationalism while liberalism had come to represent “bring America home”
dovishness. These ideological evolutions are frequent and characteristic of American
political development.
The evolution of ideologies is driven by political actors—whether politicians, polit-
ical activists, political journalists, or ordinary citizens. As Converse explained, “the shap-
ing of belief systems of any range into apparently logical wholes that are credible to large
numbers of people is an act of creative synthesis” (1964, 211).
4
Of course, once an ideolo-
gy is created, it does not remain static: it is constantly undergoing transformations that
4. While this part of Converse’s insight about ideologies has been largely ignored over the past few
decades, some political scientists have encouraged us to focus on it again (Noel 2014). In reviewing the domi-
nant approach to ideology within political science, Richard Bensel notes that “the relationship between idea-
tion and behavior usually focuses on the role of ideology as motivation or frame for political action and
usually neglects the fact that ideology is as much a product of political action as its cause. The problem here is
to unpack the relationship so that it can be restructured as a dialectically transformative process for both idea-
tion and behavior” (2016, 88).
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 29
are also the product of further “creative synthesis.” In this way, ideologies are endogenous
political structures.
Problems with Our Current Understanding of American Political Parties
The dynamic character of ideology is important to remember because—without
understanding this—we may be led to false inferences about the development of Ameri-
can political parties. For example, for most of the past century, America has had one
major party identified with liberalism (the Democratic Party) and one major party identi-
fied with conservatism (the Republican Party). If we wrongly assume that the meaning
and content of liberalism and conservatism are static, then we wrongly conclude that—as
long as Democrats have been liberal and Republicans have been conservative—that the
two major parties have not changed their ideas, rhetoric, or positions over time. When we
realize that ideologies like liberalism, conservatism, and progressivism are constantly
changing, then we can realize that a party is liable to dramatic change over time even
when it identifies with the same ideological label.
To illustrate this point, I will briefly look at the problems we encounter when we
attempt to use congressional roll-call scaling applications, like DW-NOMINATE, to
measure party ideology development. Roll-call scaling applications posit that ideological
positions on a liberal–conservative spectrum determine the roll-call voting behavior of a
party’s members of Congress (MCs), but those who use these applications typically do not
explain how the meaning and content of their liberal–conservative spectrum changes over
time. It is unclear what it means to say that a politician in one decade and a politician in
another decade have the same DW-NOMINATE score and, therefore, the same ideologi-
cal constraint. Without a detailed description of what conservative or liberal scores mean
at each point in time, many scholars and journalists falsely assume that the meaning of
these scores has remained static. In truth, the voting pattern of a liberal Democrat or con-
servative Republican in one period often represents the opposite issue positions of a liber-
al Democrat or conservative Republican in another time period.
It is true that some of the issues that liberals and conservatives debate change over
time, but it is also true that the positions liberals and conservatives take on enduring issues
change over time. For example, an extreme “conservative” DW-NOMINATE score in
1955 often described a Republican opposed to tax cuts and opposed to interventionist for-
eign policy. In contrast, an extreme “conservative” DW-NOMINATE score in 2005
often described a Republican in favor of tax cuts and an interventionist foreign policy. The
same kinds of issue position reversals among liberals and conservatives can be found with
regard to virtually every enduring issue in American politics. If the same number on an
ideology index represents two ideologies that are the opposite of each other, depending
on the time period, then that index has major problems with the way it conceives of ideol-
ogy. As David Karol put it, “a reinterpretation of the stability in ‘spatial’ positions of
members of Congress revealed by roll-call scaling or ‘ideal point’ estimation techniques is
in order [because] the ideological poles themselves have changed greatly over time. What
it meant to be a liberal in 1963 was different in several ways from what it implied in
1983” (2009, 3).
30 | LEWIS
Despite this fundamental problem, many of the political scientists who use roll-call
scaling applications claim that we can measure party ideology development by measuring
the change in average scores of a party’s MCs over time (McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal
2006; Hare and Poole 2014). While these scaling applications do tell us who votes with
whom in government—and the indices give us this information with remarkable and
admirable precision—they do not tell us what these votes mean in terms of ideology.
Without detailed historical context, we do not know what it means to say that the aver-
age Republican in the House was 0.5 conservative, or that the average Democrat in the
Senate was 2 0.3 liberal. Furthermore, we do not know what it means to say that the
Republican Party moved to the “right” on this scale or that the Democratic Party moved
to the “center.” In order to draw correct inferences about American party development,
we need to correct our mistaken assumptions. We need to remember that ideologies like
liberalism and conservatism are dynamic and not static.
Defining Party Ideology
A party ideology is a type of group ideology, and, like any other kind of shared ide-
ology, its meaning is subject to change. It is a “consetellation of ideas...which ma[kes] it
possible for members of the party to perceive a pattern in the happenings around them, to
define a group identity in terms related to that pattern, and to sketch a course of action
that would make the pattern change” (Banning 1978, 15). A party ideology may or may
not be different from other ideologies shared by groups of people like liberalism, conser-
vatism, progressivism, populism, and socialism. For most of American history, the ideol-
ogies of the two major parties were distinct from these other ideologies, but in recent
years the changing meaning and content of Republican Party ideology has tracked very
closely to the changing meaning and content of conservatism. Likewise, the evolution of
Democratic Party ideology has tracked very closely to the evolution of liberalism and pro-
gressivism (Noel 2014). Regardless of the labels we use to describe them, at all points in
American history the two major parties have articulated some ideology that shapes and
constrains the things partisans do and say (Gerring 1998; Hinich and Munger 1994, 61).
Explaining Party Ideology Development
Having established that political ideologies—including party ideologies—are sub-
ject to change, our next task is to understand what causes these changes. John Gerring
ended his study of American party history by concluding that there is “no general factor
at work that might explain the development of American party ideologies” (1998, 274).
He faulted the previous “society-centered” attempts at explaining American party ideolo-
gy development as misconceiving the role that the mass public has in shaping party ideol-
ogies, and as being unable to account for many of the changes observed in American party
history. This article also takes up Gerring’s challenge to see if a “polity-centered”
approach can improve our understanding of change in party ideologies. In the following
section, I posit a “political institutional” theory of party ideology development, which
focuses on party control of government institutions. According to this theory, change in
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 31
party control of government institutions can help explain change in some (but certainly
not all) aspects of party ideologies over time.
A Political Institutional Theory of American Party Ideology
Development
Building on previous theories of the American presidency, which explain that presi-
dents almost universally seek to maximize their power,
5
this article argues that the ten-
dency for presidents to expand their power has implications for party ideology evolution.
According to this political institutional theory, members of a party in control of the
White House have incentives to change their party’s theory of governance to advocate for
a strong presidency, centralized bureaucratic administration, and unilateral executive
action. Because intervening in foreign affairs is one of the primary powers that the party
in control of the presidency can exercise, they are also likely to advocate for more foreign
intervention. Conversely, members of the party in opposition to the White House have
incentives to change their party’s theory of governance to advocate for limited presiden-
tial power, decentralized bureaucratic administration, and working jointly with Con-
gress. They also have incentives to change their party’s theory of intervention in a way
that advocates for less foreign intervention. This article evaluates this hypothesis by trac-
ing changes in party control of the presidency and changes in party ideologies over time.
Before proceeding to the empirical sections of the article, I will more fully articulate this
political institutional theory of American party ideology development. I will identify the
premises underlying the theory, define more clearly the causal mechanisms of the theory,
and explain how it will be tested.
Theoretical Premises
This theory is based on two theoretical premises. The first premise is the idea that
human beings, in general, and politicians, in particular, tend to exercise the power they
have at their disposal. This assumption fits with previous scholarship on the presidency.
6
Neustadt (1960) explained that all presidents want to accumulate power in order to
accomplish their ends—it is just that some presidents have been more effective than
others in accumulating this power. According to Skowronek (1993, 12), all presidents
have certain constitutional powers that come with the presidential office, and the desire
to exercise these powers is “an impulse that all presidents share” in order to “realize their
ambitions.” Moe and Howell explain, “Whatever else presidents might want, they must
at bottom be seekers of power” (1999, 854).
The desire of politicians to exercise power almost always manifests as a desire to use
government power to intervene in society and the world, and this has implications for
5. See, for example, Neustadt (1960), Skowronek (1993), Moe and Howell (1999), and Howell
(2013).
6. For a review of this literature, see Sollenberger (2014).
32 | LEWIS
change in a party’s theory of intervention.
7
For example, when a presidential candidate
comes to power, they have incentives to exercise the powers of their office even if they pre-
viously criticized the exercise of such powers by their predecessor. One of the greatest
powers that a president has is that of commander in chief in foreign affairs, and so presi-
dents typically become more interventionist on foreign policy than what we would
expect from their rhetoric and ideology prior to assuming office. Thus, even though we
have had many presidential candidates criticize incumbent presidents for hawkish or
interventionist foreign policy since the turn of the twentieth century, it is something to
reflect upon that few presidents—if any—have governed as noninterventionists during
that time.
However, differences in other, perhaps more fundamental, aspects of party ideology
may cause the president to intervene in ways different from how the previous party inter-
vened. Arguably, the Republican Party’s foreign interventionism during the Bush 43
administration was directed at different ends and undergirded by different ideological
foundations, than the Democratic Party’s foreign interventionism during the Clinton
administration. Nonetheless, these changes in party theories of foreign intervention often
have ripple effects on other aspects of party ideology. For example, when the Democrats
became more interventionist on foreign policy, relative to the Republicans, during World
War I and World War II, this helped transform other aspects of the Democratic Party’s
ideology. As Gerring (1998) points out, the party shifted from a “populist” era to a
“universalist” era in the mid-twentieth century, and the party’s emphasis on spreading
democracy—articulated by Wilson and FDR—helped bring about this change in a more
fundamental aspect of party ideology. Democrats evolved from being relatively more
nationalist to relatively more internationalist in the twentieth century.
The second theoretical premise upon which this theory rests is the logic of party
competition. In the zero-sum, two-party system, partisans have reasons to change their
rhetoric in ways that justify the actions of their own party while criticizing the actions of
the opposing party. While Frances Lee points out that the logic of party competition
gives partisans incentives to act in ways that cannot simply be explained by ideology or
preferences (2009), this article’s approach goes another step further to argue that the logic
of party competition gives partisans incentives to act in ways that actually change their
party’s ideology.
Causal Mechanisms
The structure of incentives that party actors face as parties change control of the
presidency is not, on its own, sufficient to explain party ideology evolution. Ideologies,
like institutions, are structures that are not easily changed. First of all, party leaders face
incentives to maintain existing ideological positions: if ideologies are changed too often
and too cavalierly, then they lose their usefulness as reputational signaling mechanisms to
7. It is feasible that politicians could exercise the power at their disposal by not intervening, or by
even shrinking the size and/or role of government, but this is rare in American politics. Much more often,
politicians simply use the power at their disposal to intervene in pursuit of different ends than their
predecessors.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 33
voters (Hinich and Munger 1994, 75).
8
Second of all, because group ideologies are lan-
guage discourses shared by millions of people, they typically cannot change their mean-
ing for so many people all at once. It usually takes a long time for parties to stop using
their previous rhetoric/ideology and for the new rhetoric/ideology to gain currency
among politicians, interest groups, writers, activists, and party identifiers in the elector-
ate. Finally, due to path dependence, the longer the two parties have held divergent ideo-
logical positions, the more calcified these ideologies become and the more difficult they
are to change (Pierson 2004).
Thus, several ingredients need to come together before we would expect this inertia
to be overcome. One necessary component is a political issue over which the parties can
debate (Stephenson 1999). Ideological change requires the articulation and exchange of
political ideas. For example, in the case of party theories of foreign intervention, a politi-
cal issue must arise within foreign policy that “entangles” the president and the parties in
political debate. In the 1910s, World War I was a catalyst for changing party theories of
governance (e.g., the role of the president in the American political system), party theo-
ries of intervention (e.g., how much America should intervene militarily in the world),
and party theories of ends (e.g., the objective of spreading democracy). Similarly, in the
2000s, the Iraq War was a catalyst for changing those exact same aspects of party ideolo-
gies. Both episodes provided an opportunity for partisans to disagree, debate, and change
their ideologies.
In addition to a political issue to debate, this model of party ideology development
also requires a political entrepreneur who can recognize opportunities, and assemble the
necessary resources, to act on these incentives for ideological change (Sheingate 2003).
This approach appropriates Terry Moe’s “logic of institutional development”: on occa-
sion, certain actors, operating in particular institutional settings, have the necessary
incentives and resources to successfully change a political structure like a party’s ideology
(1985).
9
For example, recognizing an opportunity for change, Martin Van Buren and
Andrew Jackson provided the political entrepreneurship needed to change their party’s
ideology in the 1820s. Despite not controlling the presidency, Van Buren’s political con-
nections to various party machines and factions, and Jackson’s national popularity, pro-
vided the resources necessary for such a change. Similarly, Franklin Roosevelt provided
the political entrepreneurship, and his bully pulpit as president provided the resources,
needed to change his party’s ideology in the 1930s.
To say that party ideologies evolve over time does not necessarily mean that the peo-
ple who make up the two parties are constantly switching parties or changing their minds
(although both phenomena do happen and they are an important part of party ideology
development).
10
It can also mean that certain strands of thought within the two parties
8. Hinich and Munger (1994) point out that because party ideologies are reputational signaling
mechanisms, and because they must be somewhat stable to serve this goal, ideologies help induce stability in
electoral politics.
9. In the twentieth century, this has usually meant collaboration between elite political actors and
political thinkers referred to by Noel (2014) as “academic scribblers.”
10. David Karol (2009) has shown that members of Congress do frequently change positions on a
variety of issues.
34 | LEWIS
become more vocal or muted depending on circumstances. For example, the Anti-war
Left has long been a part of the Democratic Party: it was suppressed during the Kennedy
and Johnson administrations (a suppression resulting in riots at the 1968 party conven-
tion), but received the party’s presidential nomination in 1972 once the Republicans con-
trolled the White House and oversaw the Vietnam War. It was vocal during the Reagan
administration, muted during the Clinton administration, and vocal again during the
Bush administration’s Iraq War. Similarly, isolationists in the Republican Party lost their
dominance in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration, were revived in the
1990s during the Clinton administration, and muted again in the 2000s during the Bush
administration. This shift in emphasis—some groups within the party becoming more
influential in shaping party platforms, candidate selection, and party stances at some
times more than others—is a key ingredient in party ideology evolution.
When entrepreneurial political actors face incentives to change their party’s ideolo-
gy because of institutional dissonance, when they have sufficient resources, and when
there is a salient political issue over which the two parties debate, then a party ideology is
ripe for transformation. When this ideological shift is reflected in new discourses and rhe-
toric among party identifiers, the ideological change is complete. In this way, party ideol-
ogy development is the product of the interaction of ideas, interests, and institutions as
they change over time.
Given that so many ingredients usually need to come together before party ideolo-
gies change, under normal circumstances, only a long-term (but not short-term) change
in party control of a government institution provides enough dissonance between a
party’s institutional position and ideological position to effect a durable change in party
ideology. Because party ideologies are sticky equilibria, party ideology change typically
lags behind party control change. Thus, if a party takes control of a government institu-
tion, but then relinquishes power shortly afterwards, it is less likely that party ideologies
will change during that short time period. For example, in the aftermath of Vietnam and
Watergate, with Republicans in the White House, Democratic Party ideology advocated
for a less imperial presidency (its theory of governance) and a less imperial foreign policy
(its theory of foreign intervention). As a result, the Democratic Party nominated, and the
country elected, Jimmy Carter on just such a platform in 1976. Once in office, Carter
realized the expedience of a strong presidency and an interventionist foreign policy, but
despite his own moves in that direction, Democratic Party ideology remained opposed to
a strong presidency and foreign intervention. The incentives for party ideology change
lasted only four years, and the ideology change lagged long enough that there was no sub-
stantive ideological change by the time Republicans regained control of the White
House. With Reagan’s election in 1980, the dissonance between institutional position
and ideological position was resolved by a change in institutional control rather than a
change in ideology.
Other Factors that Influence Party Ideology Development
Having outlined the causal mechanisms of the theory, I recognize that changes in
party control, and the resulting changes in party ideologies, are not the only factors that
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 35
influence party ideology development. The most significant driver of party ideology
change is public ideology development, which is the product of innumerable historical
contingencies and factors including major events (like wars and economic depressions)
and major secular developments (like industrialization, immigration, urbanization, and
the development of the national security state). The parties change their positions and
ideologies as the larger public changes its positions and ideologies. The study of Ameri-
can political culture and thought, which bears on public ideology change, has rightfully
received a great deal of attention by historians and political scientists.
This article does not pretend to explain all of these broader movements in American
public ideology over time. Instead, this article asks, more narrowly, what causes the ideol-
ogies of the two major parties to develop differently, in relation to each other, within this
larger sphere of changes in public opinion and American political culture and thought.
The number of scholars asking this question is much smaller, and almost all of these
scholars have focused on society-centered factors like class, social psychology, and ethnici-
ty.
11
The particular contribution of this article is to point out an important polity-
centered factor that also helps explain the relative ideological movement between the
parties.
Hypothesis
The following sections examine whether a party in long-term control of the presi-
dency tends to develop its ideology in a way that advocates for relatively more presiden-
tial power and foreign intervention. A party’s advocacy of more foreign intervention
includes calls for declaring war on foreign nations, sending troops into international con-
flicts, funding and otherwise aiding foreign nations, increasing spending on the military
to prepare for foreign conflict, and greater involvement in international organizations
that intervene in foreign affairs. This interventionist position has taken on many different
names including internationalism, realism, nation building, entanglements, humanitari-
anism, spreading democracy, hawkishness, spreading peace, or imperialism—depending
on if it is being praised or criticized. Similarly, a party’s advocacy of less foreign interven-
tion includes opposition to declaring war on foreign nations, to sending troops into inter-
national conflicts, and to funding and aiding foreign nations, while expressing support
for remaining neutral in international conflicts, decreasing spending on the military, and
less involvement in international organizations that intervene in foreign affairs. This
position has also assumed many different names, including isolationism, realism, paci-
fism, or dovishness—depending on if it is being praised or criticized.
Dependent Variable: Relative Change in Party Ideologies. Ideology is a noto-
riously difficult political phenomenon to measure (Converse 1964), but in order to test
theories that purport to explain party ideology development, a better measure than roll-
call scaling applications is required. To understand how the ideologies of the two major
parties have changed at different points in American history we must focus on how the
11. Gerring (1998) reviews this literature in his concluding chapter.
36 | LEWIS
ideologies constrain different ideas and attitudes at different times. Following Gerring’s
methodology, to measure party ideology this article focuses on national party platforms.
A national party ideology is defined most clearly in a presidential campaign where a party
writes a platform of principles defining the party’s ideology and the candidate engages in
speeches and debates distinguishing his/her party’s principles from his/her opponents.
12
In addition to party platforms, measurements of party ideology will be supplemented by
an analysis of party rhetoric in presidential campaigns, survey data about the attitudes
held by party identifiers in the electorate, and votes cast by party politicians. In this way,
the article measures ideology as it exists in all three components of a political party: the
party in government (issue positions of party politicians), the party organization (party
platforms), and the party in the electorate (survey data).
As noted before, the dependent variable measures change in the relative movement of par-
ty positions with regard to more or less presidential power and foreign intervention. For
example, at the start of the Eisenhower administration in 1953, Democratic Party ideology
called for more foreign intervention than Republican Party ideology. Because the Republi-
can Party took long-term control of the presidency between 1953 and 1960, this article pre-
dicts that the Republican Party will change its ideological position to move further in the
direction of foreign intervention than their Democratic opponents. The prediction is not
necessarily that the two parties will actually switch positions in ideological space (although
that is possible), but that the gap between the two parties will at least narrow. Furthermore,
it is possible—due to secular shifts in American history—that both parties moved in the
direction of more foreign intervention during this period. Within this general movement by
society at large, however, this theory predicts that the Republican Party will move further in
that direction than the Democratic Party. Thus, it is the relative movement of the two parties’
ideologies that is being measured rather than their absolute positions.
Independent Variable: Change in Long-Term Control of the Presidency. As
explained earlier, given the stickiness and path dependence of ideologies, and the need for
other factors to emerge like a political issue to debate and a party entrepreneur to act, under
normal conditions it usually takes long periods of time for party ideologies to change as
expected. Party ideologies will not change as much with short-term changes in party con-
trol of government institutions as they will with long-term changes in party control of gov-
ernment institutions. As a result, this article focuses on changes in long-term control,
which is defined here as a change lasting for at least eight years. This time span is chosen
based on Skowronek’s work on reconstructive politics (1993). In American politics, a one-
term president is considered a blip or an aberration. A party that only captures the presiden-
cy for one term, and is then forced to relinquish power, is a party with only tenuous control
of government that leaves a smaller mark on the course of American political
12. Several scholars have noted the consistency between campaign rhetoric (platforms and speeches)
and subsequent issue positions (Pomper 1968). Others have argued that party platforms and campaign
speeches are mere rhetoric, but even if this claim is true, it does not discount them as accurate expressions of
party ideology. It is true that voters no longer read party platforms, but that does not make them any less rep-
resentative of party ideology. Platforms include the narratives that partisans tell themselves and the ideas that
ideological partisans want to communicate—whether or not the non-partisan electorate is listening.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 37
development. “Reconstructive presidents” (and parties) are always at least two-term
presidents, who then have successors from their same party continue their reconstruc-
tive work. Thus, in identifying periods of long-term party control of a government
institution, this article looks for party control that lasts for at least eight years.
In identifying periods of change in long-term party control, this article looks at
moments when the new institutional configuration is in tension with the existing party
ideologies. Thus, I examine only instances in which one party transfers long-term control
to the opposing party. A party’s institutional position may shift from a long period of
control to a short period of opposition and back to another long period of control, but
this would not represent a new party taking long-term control.
Observations. Because this article focuses on long-term party control of govern-
ment institutions, in order to record enough observations to be able to draw conclusions
about a trend, it must look at a long stretch of U.S. history. This article examines party
control of the presidency and party ideologies since 1900 because the turn of the
TABLE 1
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Foreign Intervention (Expectations)
Time Period
Independent Variable:
Change in Long-Term
Party Control
of the Presidency
Dependent Variable:
Expected Change
in Relative
Party Ideologies
1 Progressive Era and
Republican Empire
1900–1913
Republican
Presidents
Republicans should move more toward
intervention than the Democrats
2 World War I and Wilsonian
Internationalism
1913-1921
Democratic
President
Democrats should move more toward
intervention than the Republicans
3 Interwar Era
1921–1933
Republican
Presidents
Republicans should move more toward
intervention than the Democrats
4 Democratic New Deal and
World War II
1933–1953
Democratic
Presidents
Democrats should move more toward
intervention than the Republicans
5 Republican
Anti-Communism
1953–1961
Republican
President
Republicans should move more toward
intervention than the Democrats
6 Democratic Cold War
1961–1969
Democratic
Presidents
Democrats should move more toward
intervention than the Republicans
7 Republican Cold War
1969–1993
Republican
Presidents
Republicans should move more toward
intervention than the Democrats
8 Clinton Internationalism
1993–2001
Democratic
President
Democrats should move more toward
intervention than the Republicans
9 Bush War on Terror
2001–2009
Republican
President
Republicans should move more toward
intervention than the Democrats
38 | LEWIS
twentieth century represented a new era of American foreign affairs. These eleven decades
of U.S. history yield nine observations of long-term change in party control of the presi-
dency (see Table 1). The following sections will examine whether these changes coincide
with changes in party theories of foreign intervention in the expected way.
The Progressive Era and Republican Empire, 1900–1913
Between 1900 and 1913, Republicans controlled the presidency, and the two parties’
ideologies developed as expected. Republicans developed a theory of governance that
involved a strong presidency—typified in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt (TR)—
and an increasingly interventionist foreign policy. In contrast, Democratic criticisms of pres-
idential power became a central aspect of party platforms and rhetoric. At the same time, the
Democratic Party’s foreign policy, articulated by William Jennings Bryan, became more
critical of U.S. military interventions and imperialism than it had ever been before.
Historical Context
The turn of the twentieth century was a time of imperial American foreign policy.
This represented an important secular shift in public ideology, with respect to foreign
intervention, from the early American republic when Americans largely wished to be left
alone by foreign powers (Schlesinger 1995). Over the course of the nineteenth century,
American ideology—including the ideology of both major parties—became more inter-
ventionist on foreign policy for a variety of reasons, including the American appetite for
territorial expansion and the rise of American economic and military power. During that
time, the United States stopped fearing the military prowess of the nations of Europe and
took its place as a leading world power itself.
In 1898, the American public supported, Congress declared, and the president exe-
cuted war with Spain over its colonial possessions. American victory in the war resulted
in the acquisition of Spain’s colonies, and further embroiled the United States in foreign
interventions in the years following. The Spanish-American War, and the issue of Ameri-
can territorial expansion, provided a foreign policy issue over which the parties could
debate and distinguish themselves and their principles. President McKinley along with
Theodore Roosevelt and Bryan were three of the party entrepreneurs most involved in
developing their parties’ ideologies during this period.
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Governance
In the half century between 1860 and 1912, just one Democrat was elected presi-
dent. In long-term control of the presidency, the Republican Party’s theory of governance
called for a strong executive. While Lincoln articulated the doctrine of executive discre-
tion most intelligently, by the first decade of the twentieth century, the party’s ideology
had expanded and been influenced by the ideas of executive power propounded by Theo-
dore Roosevelt (Yarbrough 2012). By the end of his presidency, TR had moved his party’s
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 39
theory of governance a long way from the Whig Party of the 1830s–50s and the Republi-
can Party that impeached Andrew Johnson.
13
While the Whigs adopted their party name
to indicate their opposition to executive power, Republicans at the turn of the twentieth
century created the modern, strong executive with Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt.
The Democratic Party’s theory of governance, in contrast, developed in a way that
called for a constrained executive. This was a change from the antebellum period in which
Jackson’s Democratic Party advocated more presidential power than the Whigs. Living
in the presidential wilderness for more than 40 years since the Civil War had an impact
on the Democratic Party. The 1904 party platform dedicated an entire section to a criti-
cism of “Executive Usurpation”:
We favor the nomination and election of a President imbued with the principles of the Con-
stitution, who will set his face sternly against executive usurpation of legislative and judicial
functions, whether that usurpation be veiled under the guise of executive construction of
existing laws, or whether it take refuge in the tyrant’s plea of necessity or superior wisdom.
(Democratic National Convesion [DNC] 1904)
The 1908 platform criticized the exponential growth in the number of executive-
appointed office-holders. In contrast to this Republican spoils system, the Democrats
promised “economy in administration.” Finally, the 1912 platform, at the height of
Democratic anti-presidential ideology, went so far as to call for a constitutional amend-
ment that would limit presidents to just one term.
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Foreign Intervention
Party control of the presidency also coincided with changes in party theories of for-
eign intervention. The 1900 GOP platform celebrated America’s intervention in the
Caribbean on the grounds that the United States was spreading freedom to Cuba: the
Republican administration “conducted and in victory concluded a war for liberty and
human rights...To ten millions of the human race there was given a ‘new birth of free-
dom’ and to the American people a new and noble responsibility” (Republican National
Convention [RNC] 1900). After his heroics with the “Rough Riders,” TR became
McKinley’s vice president, and soon assumed the presidency. TR helped nurture the
GOP’s interventionist foreign policy, which included a willingness to have the United
States exercise “an international police power” (T. Roosevelt 1904).
At the same time that the GOP peaked in its interventionist foreign policy with
TR, the Democratic Party moved in the other direction by nominating the outspoken
critic of imperialism William Jennings Bryan in 1896, 1900, and 1908. During the sec-
ond half of the nineteenth century, the Democratic Party had turned its back on the
expansionism and imperialism it advocated in the 1840s and 50s. As a party dominated
13. The party’s theory of governance during the 1910s can probably be best described as somewhere
between the more radical view of executive power held by Roosevelt and the more conservative view of execu-
tive power held by his successor William Howard Taft. While TR’s theories were not the reigning ideology
in the party, the GOP had a much different view of executive power by 1912 than it had at the start of its
long-term control of the White House in 1861.
40 | LEWIS
by rural farmers in the South and West, it absorbed the Populist Party and became
increasingly hostile to the internationalism of the urban Eastern elites who made up the
Republican Party. The 1900 platform specifically denounced America’s interventions in
the Philippines: “We condemn and denounce the Philippine policy of the present admin-
istration. It has involved the Republic in an unnecessary war, sacrificed the lives of many
of our noblest sons, and placed the United States, previously known and applauded
throughout the world as the champion of freedom, in the false and un-American position
of crushing with military force the efforts of our former allies to achieve liberty and self-
government.” It also condemned “militarism” in general, arguing, in an echo of the Jef-
fersonian Republicans, that a large standing army is a threat to freedom and requires bur-
densome taxes (DNC 1900). The 1904 platform dedicated an entire section to what it
called “imperialism”:
We favor the preservation, so far as we can, of an open door for the world’s commerce in the
Orient without unnecessary entanglement in Oriental and European affairs, and without
arbitrary, unlimited, irresponsible and absolute government anywhere within our jurisdic-
tion. We oppose, as fervently as did George Washington, an indefinite, irresponsible, dis-
cretionary and vague absolutism and a policy of colonial exploitation, no matter where or by
whom invoked or exercised. We believe with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, that no
Government has a right to make one set of laws for those “at home” and another and a differ-
ent set of laws, absolute in their character, for those “in the colonies.” (DNC 1900)
The platform further criticized the Roosevelt administration for making war without
congressional approval. Like the Whigs of the nineteenth century, the Democrats were
now invoking George Washington’s noninterventionist rhetoric.
In the first decade of the twentieth century, the Republican and Democratic Parties
developed distinct ideologies in accordance with GOP control of the presidency. The
Republican Party’s theory of governance advocated for a strong president, while the Dem-
ocratic Party’s theory of governance criticized “executive usurpation.” The GOP’s theory
of foreign intervention advocated for a strong international presence and a “big stick,”
while the Democratic theory of foreign intervention criticized “imperialism” and
“militarism.”
World War I and Wilsonian Internationalism, 1913–1921
Between 1917 and 1918, American casualties in the Great War cooled the Ameri-
can appetite for military conflict. This critical juncture revived a strain of noninterven-
tionism and isolationism that persisted in American culture for a quarter century until
World War II. Both parties became less interventionist than they had been in the preced-
ing decades. Nonetheless, party control of the presidency helped shape how the ideologies
of the two parties developed in relation to each other within this broader sphere. During
the two presidential terms of Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic Party came to embrace
presidential power, and relatively more foreign intervention, while the GOP adopted the
anti-internationalist rhetoric of isolationist Americans like Bryan.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 41
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Governance
After finally winning control of the White House, the Democratic Party stopped
advocating for a constitutional amendment to bar presidents from running for reelection.
They also stopped talking about executive usurpation. Woodrow Wilson was one of the
nation’s leading theorists of a strong presidency in the American constitutional system.
He called for a leader democracy in which the president would lead responsible party gov-
ernment. Symbolic of his efforts to strengthen the presidency, Wilson became the first
president since the eighteenth century to deliver the State of the Union Address in per-
son. Upon reaching the conclusion of the 1916 platform, the Democratic Party exclaimed
that “Woodrow Wilson stands to-day the greatest American of his generation” (DNC
1916). The party entrepreneurship of Woodrow Wilson, who just happened to have a
background as a political scientist advocating for executive power, allowed the Democrat-
ic Party to change its theory of governance relatively quickly. If another politician had
received the Democratic nomination and become president, it probably would have taken
longer.
The Republicans were relatively slower to change their theory of governance and
did not immediately switch to criticizing presidential power. However, by 1920, the
GOP’s theory of governance called for a constrained executive. Specifically, the Republi-
can Party platform criticized President Wilson for executive usurpation and for continu-
ing to exercise the emergency powers of the president after the end of the Great War:
“The President clings tenaciously to his autocratic war time powers. His veto of the reso-
lution declaring peace and his refusal to sign the bill repealing war time legislation, no
longer necessary, evidenced his determination not to restore to the Nation and to the
State the form of government provided for by the Constitution. This usurpation is intol-
erable and deserves the severest condemnation” (RNC 1920).
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Foreign Intervention
As the two parties’ theories of governance changed, so did their theories of foreign
intervention. World War I acted as a catalyst in this process by ensnaring the parties in
debate over foreign policy. In 1913, Democrats were still employing the rhetoric and ide-
ology of anti-imperialism that they had been using since Reconstruction. Shortly after
taking office, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson promised a noninterventionist
crowd in Alabama that “the United States will never again seek one additional foot of ter-
ritory by conquest” (Wilson 1913). However, Wilson’s ideology, and the ideology of the
Democratic Party he led, changed on foreign policy over the course of his administration.
After assuming office, President Wilson intervened more internationally than his
party’s previous attitudes toward foreign intervention would have indicated, and a change
in the party’s theory of foreign intervention followed. This change, though, only occurred
after factional infighting, which demonstrates the difficulty of changing a political struc-
ture like a party’s ideology. In April 1914 Wilson sent troops to occupy Veracruz in
response to the Tampico Affair, and in July 1915 Wilson sent 330 U.S. Marines to occu-
py Haiti to protect American business interests. When it became apparent, in 1915, that
42 | LEWIS
Wilson’s diplomacy was leading America into intervening in the Great War in Europe,
anti-war Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned from Wilson’s cabinet. As
Wilson ran for reelection in 1916, the Democratic Party’s platform showed signs of its
change on foreign policy.
The circumstances of the last two years have revealed necessities of international action
which no former generation can have foreseen. We hold that it is the duty of the United
States to use its power, not only to make itself safe at home, but also to make secure its just
interests throughout the world, and, both for this end and in the interest of humanity, to
assist the world in securing settled peace and justice. We believe that...the time has come
when it is the duty of the United States to join the other nations of the world in any feasible
association that will effectively serve those principles. (DNC 1916)
The 1916 platform was the first Democratic Party platform to call for a military buildup
since the Civil War. Wilson requested and received a declaration of war from Congress in
April 1917.
14
After the end of the war in 1918, Wilson was the key player in attempting
to form an international league of nations.
The Republican Party’s theory of foreign intervention moved in the opposite
direction. In 1916, the Republicans nominated an internationalist, Charles Hughes,
as they had always done, but they also began to back away from their previous ideolog-
ical commitments. The 1916 party platform explained, “We desire peace, the peace of
justice and right, and believe in maintaining a strict and honest neutrality between
the belligerents in the great war in Europe. We must perform all our duties and insist
upon all our rights as neutrals without fear and without favor” (RNC 1916). By the
end of the war, American political ideology had undergone a secular shift toward
less foreign intervention. After Wilson’s second term in office, the GOP nominated
their first noninternationalist candidate in Warren Harding, who called for a
“return to normalcy.” Harding won in a landslide by criticizing Wilson’s foreign
interventionism.
Although Democrats held the White House for just eight years, World War I and
the party entrepreneurship of Wilson provided enough incentives and opportunities for
the Democratic and Republican Parties to change their ideologies in ways that had long-
lasting effects. These changes in relatively transient party theories of governance and par-
ty theories of intervention also had an impact on changes in relatively durable party theo-
ries of ends. During Wilson’s administration, an internationalist faction emerged within
the Democratic Party for the first time, and that faction has been present ever since with
varying levels of importance. Likewise, an isolationist faction emerged within the Repub-
lican Party for the first time, and that faction has also been present ever since with varying
levels of importance. This era helped to shape Democratic Party ideology such that the
party’s current theory of ends includes international humanitarianism—an aspect of party
ideology that was not present prior to the Wilson administration. If anything, prior to
14. Wilson also requested and received the Selective Service Act in 1917, which drafted 2.8 million
soldiers. Like the Federalists during the Quasi War and the Republicans during the Civil War, the Democrats
prosecuted seditious speech during the war.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 43
this time, international humanitarianism was a tenet of GOP ideology. This development
foreshadowed the emergence of “universalism” as a defining characteristic of Democratic
Party ideology (Gerring 1998).
Republican Interwar Era, 1921–1933
Because the horrors of World War I resulted in a secular shift in American foreign
policy toward isolationism, and because the Republicans led the country’s move in this
direction, the election of 1920 witnessed the largest popular vote landslide in American
history.
15
Within this larger sphere of attitudes about foreign policy in the 1920s,
change in long-term party control of the presidency between 1921 and 1933 influenced
relative change between the parties. With Republicans in the White House from 1921
to 1933, the two parties’ ideologies evolved as expected. However, as there were no
wars during this period, the changes were not as dramatic as those witnessed in the
1910s.
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Governance
After losing two consecutive elections, the Democratic Party returned to its rhe-
toric of opposition to executive power and bureaucratic centralization. The 1928 plat-
form declared its opposition to “bureaucracy and the multiplication of offices.” Instead
of nationalization, the Democrats defended “the rights of the states” as “a bulwark
against centralization.” The platform devoted an entire section, “Economy and Reor-
ganization,” to explaining how it would shrink and reorganize the executive branch.
Similarly, the first thing the 1932 Democratic Party platform promised, as a solution
to the Great Depression, was “an immediate and drastic reduction of governmental
expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments
and bureaus, and eliminating extravagance.” Republicans also promised economy in
government during this period, but they insisted this was a “nonpartisan” issue, and
because, according to them, “the President is particularly fitted to direct measures,”
their proposed solution was to give him “the required authority” to reorganize the
bureaucracy.
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Foreign Intervention
Although these changes were likewise relatively minor and emerged more slowly,
the parties’ theories of foreign intervention also developed in the expected way. For exam-
ple, in the 1924 presidential campaign, the Democrats called for disarmament, but they
still advocated for creating the League of Nations, while the GOP still opposed it. By
1928, however, the Democratic Party was returning to the rhetoric of nonintervention
that it had used during the era of Grover Cleveland and William Jennings Bryan.
15. Harding beat Cox 60% to 34%
44 | LEWIS
Echoing the 1900 platform, the 1928 platform expressed an “abhorrence of militarism,
conquest and imperialism” and advocated “freedom from entangling political alli-
ances with foreign nations” (DNC 1928). Democrats also returned to the practice of
criticizing Republican administrations for conducting foreign policy without the
consent of the Senate. The 1932 platform demanded “no interference in the internal
affairs of other nations.” Their presidential candidates in 1920, 1924, and 1928
resembled the candidates of the pre-Wilson years more than they did Wilson. In
1924, William Jennings Bryan’s brother, Charles, was put on the presidential ticket
with John Davis.
The Republicans also moved slowly back to their pre-Wilson positions.
Although Harding and Coolidge had campaigned in 1920 on retreating from foreign
interventions and a return to normalcy, almost all presidents end up engaging in more
foreign intervention than they anticipate. Coolidge sent troops to Honduras in 1924
and Nicaragua in 1926. It is true that the Republican Congress was more resistant
than the Republican presidency in this return to internationalism and rejected Cool-
idge’s request that America join the World Court, but control of the presidency still
influenced party ideology development. The 1928 GOP platform called for the “full
ratio” of “Navy armaments” allowed under the limitations of the Navy Armaments
Treaty and the presidential “power to draft people and resources in times of war”
(RNC 1928).
Democrats criticized Republican interventionism in the 1928 presidential cam-
paign. Franklin Roosevelt, sensing a winning issue to use against Republicans, penned an
article in Foreign Affairs criticizing the Coolidge administration for its military policy.
“We can for all time,” Roosevelt proclaimed, “renounce the practice of arbitrary interven-
tion in the home affairs of our neighbors” (F. Roosevelt 1928, 586). Roosevelt’s editorial
stance, however, probably had more to do with public opinion at the time than Demo-
cratic Party ideology. Noninterventionism was popular in America, and candidates of
both parties sought to align themselves with the popular side of the issue. The two parties
were not as clearly divided on the issue as they had been during World War I. For exam-
ple, while not as antiinterventionist as FDR in 1928, presidential candidate Herbert
Hoover backed away from the Republican administration’s foreign policies toward Latin
America (McPherson 2014).
During the 1920s, there was tremendous diversity of thought within both parties
on foreign policy, but we can still detect some trends in party ideology development. In
his study of roll-call votes on American foreign policy, Grassmuck (1951) found that
“during the twenties Republican congressmen tended to support the foreign policy of the
Republican presidents, and this policy favored a strong international position. Through-
out this same period Democratic congressmen tended to oppose this position.” Without a
war or foreign crisis to sharply demarcate foreign policy positions, the ideological devel-
opments of the 1920s were not as sharp as the changes in the 1910s. The inertia of ideo-
logical structure resisted change. Nonetheless, the two parties’ ideologies changed in
relation to each other as predicted. After being staunchly less interventionist during
World War I, the GOP became at least as interventionist as the Democratic Party—if
not more so—during the 1920s.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 45
Democratic New Deal and World War II, 1933–1953
Former critic of foreign intervention, Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI), recorded
in his diary that his “convictions regarding international cooperation and collective secu-
rity took form on the afternoon of the Pearl Harbor attack. That day ended isolationism
for any realist” (Vandenberg 1952, 1). World War II ended isolationism for most Ameri-
cans, in general, and this represented a secular shift in American ideas about foreign inter-
vention. The relative change in ideologies between the parties during this time, however,
was influenced by party control of the White House.
Franklin Roosevelt established long-term Democratic Party control of the presiden-
cy by winning four consecutive elections from 1932 to 1944. During this period, the
Democratic Party clearly became more supportive of presidential power and foreign inter-
vention than the Republican Party. The anti-executive and isolationist wing of the GOP,
led by Senator Robert Taft, emerged as the dominant voice of the party during this time.
While ultimately supporting FDR’s intervention in World War II, after the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, the differences between Republican and Democratic foreign poli-
cy ideology meant that the Republicans moved more slowly into war. Just as Wilson pro-
vided political entrepreneurship to change Democratic Party ideology during the
opportunity provided by World War I, Roosevelt provided political entrepreneurship to
change Democratic Party ideology during the opportunity provided by World War II.
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Governance
During the 1930s, the parties first changed their theories of governance. Between
1933 and 1952, advocacy for a strong executive and presidential leadership became an
important part of Democratic Party ideology. FDR’s administration is widely seen as
defining the modern presidency, and the Democratic Party largely justified this expansion
of presidential power while the Republican Party mostly criticized it. The 1936 GOP
platform opened by attacking not only the economic interventions of New Dealism but
also, interestingly, its expansion of executive and bureaucratic power:
America is in peril... The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President. The
integrity and authority of the Supreme Court have been flouted...The New Deal Adminis-
tration... has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the
same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures. It has created a vast
multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and
sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people...It has coerced and intimidated voters
by withholding relief to those opposing its tyrannical policies...To a free people, these
actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences
between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election tran-
scends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join
us in defense of American institutions, (RNC 1936)
According to Republicans, the 1936 election could not be “waged on the traditional dif-
ferences between the Republican and Democratic parties” because the election was not
46 | LEWIS
only about the ends of government in society, but also about the constitutional balance of
institutional powers (theories of governance). The GOP made a call for a “defense of
American institutions.”
The fight over Roosevelt’s Third New Deal, which would have expanded the power
of the presidency at the expense of Congress and the courts, also illustrates the changing
theories of governance within the two parties. In March 1938, the Senate passed FDR’s
executive reorganization bill 49–42 (Milkis 1993, 122). However, not a single Republi-
can joined the 47 Democrats, 1 Progressive, and 1 Independent who voted in favor of the
bill (Congressional Quarterly 1950). When the Executive Reorganization Act of 1939
finally passed the House, 98% of Democrats, but just 5% of Republicans, supported the
bill. Similarly, when the Senate passed the House version, 63–23, 95% of Democrats, but
just 9% of Republicans, voted in favor of the bill (Poole and Rosenthal 2015).
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Foreign Intervention
This change of emphasis in the GOP’s theory of governance had implications for a
change of emphasis in the GOP’s theory of foreign intervention. As early as 1936, GOP
platforms began criticizing FDR for Wilsonian internationalism, and—like the Whigs
and Bryan Democrats before them—reviving the words of Washington: “Obedient to the
traditional foreign policy of America and to the repeatedly expressed will of the American
people, we pledge that America shall not become a member of the League of Nations nor
of the World Court nor shall America take on any entangling alliances in foreign affairs”
(RNC 1936). By 1940, as FDR looked to involve America in the Second World War that
had broken out in Europe, GOP isolationism reached its peak:
The Republican Party is firmly opposed to involving this Nation in foreign war. We are still
suffering from the ill effects of the last World War: a war which cost us a twenty-four billion
dollar increase in our national debt, billions of uncollectible foreign debts, and the complete
upset of our economic system, in addition to the loss of human life and irreparable damage
to the health of thousands of our boys. (RNC 1940)
Even after the GOP admitted that U.S. involvement in World War II was the cor-
rect course of action, the party again resisted the Democratic Party’s efforts at internation-
al political organization. “We shall seek to achieve such aims through organized
international cooperation and not by joining a World State” (RNC 1944). It is true that
from 1941 to 1944, even though they were out of power, the GOP became more interven-
tionist than they had been in the past. However, the hypothesis tested in this article is
not whether a party becomes more or less interventionist on some absolute scale, but how
much more or less interventionist it becomes in relation to the other party. In this
instance, the GOP, in opposition to the president, moved more slowly than the Demo-
crats toward the new position of international intervention that the United States adopted
in the 1940s. It was not until 1948 that the GOP offered support for the United Nations
(UN) in its party platform.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 47
The Democratic Party, in contrast, was proud of its internationalism and interven-
tionism. The party defended FDR against charges by the GOP that he was engaging in
“war-mongering” (DNC 1940). In 1947, President Truman outlined his Truman Doc-
trine, committing America to intervene internationally to protect free peoples against
Soviet aggression. In 1950, Truman sent troops to protect South Korea against invasion
from the Communist North. By the end of two decades of Democratic Party dominance
of the presidency, the party had become fully more interventionist than they were during
the GOP administrations of the 1920s. Twisting the historical record, and telling them-
selves that they had always been the party of internationalism, the 1952 platform boasted:
“The return of the Democratic Party to power in 1933 marked the end of a tragic era of
isolationism fostered by Republican administrations which had deliberately and callously
rejected the golden opportunity created by Woodrow Wilson for collective action to
secure the peace.” An important part of the process of party ideology change over time is
party narrative change. Parties constantly rework their narratives to assure themselves
that they have continuity with their past, and the 1952 DNC platform is an excellent
example of that.
In 1952, after twenty straight years of Democratic presidents, the newly created
ANES asked its survey respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with this statement:
“Since the end of the last world war this country has gone too far in concerning itself with
problems in other parts of the world.” 38% of Democrats, but just 25% of Republicans,
disagreed with that statement (Campbell, Gurin, and Miller 1999). Thus, significantly
more Democrats than Republicans expressed the more interventionist attitude on foreign
policy in 1952.
Republican Cold War, 1953–1961
Like the presidency of Woodrow Wilson in the 1910s, the Eisenhower presidency
of the 1950s represented a relatively brief change in long-term party control. However,
just like in the 1910s, the relative ideological positions of the parties still changed as
expected. A foreign policy issue (the Cold War) and an entrepreneurial party reformer
(Dwight Eisenhower) provided the necessary ingredients for party ideology change.
In the 1950s, the GOP caught up with the Democratic Party and became just as
interventionist, if not more so, on foreign policy. “Before 1952, the Republican Party,
represented largely by its Congressional leaders, had tended to oppose the active interna-
tionalism of the Democratic Party. In 1953 and thereafter, when the focus for the Repub-
lican Party shifted to the White House, the general adherence of the Eisenhower
administration to the internationalist policies of its predecessors served to minimize party
differences in foreign affairs” (Campbell, Converse et al. 1960, 199–200). Despite its ear-
lier opposition to the UN, in 1956 the party stated its intention to “vigorously support
the United Nations” (RNC 1956).
After two terms of a Republican administration, the party articulated its newfound
interventionist ideology in this way:
48 | LEWIS
The pre-eminence of this Republic requires of us a vigorous, resolute foreign policy—inflex-
ible against every tyrannical encroachment, and mighty in its advance toward our own affir-
mative goals...The countries of the free world have been benefited, reinforced and drawn
closer together by the vigor of American support of the United Nations...We believe mili-
tary assistance to our allies under the mutual security program should be continued with all
the vigor and funds needed to maintain the strength of our alliances at levels essential to our
common safety. The firm diplomacy of the Eisenhower-Nixon Administration has been sup-
ported by a military power superior to any in the history of our nation or in the world. As
long as world tensions menace us with war, we are resolved to maintain an armed power
exceeded by no other. (RNC 1960)
It is true that, in the aftermath of the Korean War, the Eisenhower administration was
less willing to use American ground troops in fighting Communism than the Truman
administration had been. Eisenhower resisted French requests for American troops to
help fight the Communists in Vietnam in 1954. However, Republicans were just inter-
ventionist in other ways: Eisenhower relied more on threats of nuclear force, supplying
weapons and money to nations fighting against Communist aggression, and use of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Party theories of presidential power and foreign intervention are not usually over-
turned on election night or as soon as a new party takes control of the presidency. As ideo-
logical structures, they continue to shape the behavior of party members until the
ideology can be transformed, which typically takes years. Like Wilson and FDR before
him, due to previous ideological predilections, Eisenhower was less in tune with the
reigning ideology of his party than others, like Senator Robert Taft, who might have
been nominated by the Republicans in 1952 (Milkis 1993, 168). Furthermore, due to the
incentives that presidents almost universally face to exercise the powers at their disposal,
Eisenhower faced incentives to intervene more in foreign affairs, and with more reliance
on executive discretion, than the ideological position of the party as a whole. Thus, Sena-
tor Bricker reintroduced his amendment in 1953 with GOP support even though Repub-
licans had won control of the White House. In the first months after the election, they
continued to vote according to the ideological dispositions they had built up over the pre-
vious two decades. While it is difficult to reverse 20 years of ideological developments,
through Eisenhower’s entrepreneurship and the resources at his disposal, the party even-
tually backed away from its previous anti-presidential and noninterventionist ideology
over the course of his administration. By the time the Bricker Amendment came up for a
passage vote in the Senate on February 26, 1954, after Eisenhower worked against the leg-
islation for a year, the parties took roughly the same positions: 33 Republicans and 30
Democrats supported the Bricker Amendment, while 14 Republicans and 18 Democrats
opposed it.
The dramatic change in party theories of foreign intervention can be seen in the
responses that Democrats and Republicans in the electorate gave to survey questions
on foreign policy during this time. As noted, in 1952 Democrats had given the more
interventionist response to the ANES question about foreign policy by a difference of
13 points. In 1956, the ANES asked survey respondents if they agreed or disagreed
with the statement that “this country would be better off if we just stayed home
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 49
and did not concern ourselves with problems in other parts of the world.” This time,
61% of Republicans, and 57% of Democrats, disagreed with that statement. Thus, by
1956, more Republicans than Democrats were giving the interventionist response.
By 1960, after eight years of the Eisenhower presidency, that difference had
grown from four points to eight. While both parties became more interventionist on
foreign policy during the 1950s, Republicans moved farther in that direction than
Democrats.
Democratic Cold War, 1961–1969
Long-term party control of the White House shifted to the Democrats in the
1960s. From 1961 to 1969, the Democratic Party controlled the presidency with Cold
War liberals John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and the two parties’ theories of
governance developed as expected. The 1964 GOP platform pledged an “elimination of
excessive bureaucracy” and the 1968 platform complained that “an entrenched, burgeon-
ing bureaucracy has increasingly usurped powers, unauthorized by Congress.” Sounding
like Democrats during the Hoover administration, Republicans went on to claim that the
“decentralization of power, as well as strict Congressional oversight of administrative and
regulatory agency compliance with the letter and spirit of the law, are urgently needed to
preserve personal liberty, improve efficiency, and provide a swifter response to human
problems” (RNC 1968).
However, contrary to the hypothesis tested here, there was no substantive and
clear relative movement in party theories of foreign intervention. At the start of this
period, both parties were roughly equally anti-communist, and both parties boasted of
their toughness toward, and willingness to intervene against, the Soviet Union. By the
end of Johnson’s administration in 1968, both parties were again roughly equally inter-
ventionist. In the 1968 ANES survey, roughly equal numbers of Democrats (74%) and
Republicans (76%) disagreed with the noninterventionist sentiment that “this country
would be better off if we just stayed home and did not concern ourselves with problems
in other parts of the world.” It is true that the eight-point gap between the parties nar-
rowed to a two-point gap, but that change alone is not substantive enough to indicate
an incontrovertible shift in the relative ideological positions of the parties. An analysis
of the two parties’ platforms in 1964 and 1968, likewise, do not reveal clear differences
on the issue of foreign intervention. Thus, contrary to the hypothesis of this article,
even though there was a change in long-term party control of the presidency between
1961 and 1968, there was not a clear change in the relative ideological positions of the
two parties with regard to foreign intervention. Because it is debatable whether or not
the parties’ theories of foreign intervention changed relative to each other during this
period, I will not code this era as favorable to my hypothesis. An observation can only
be coded as following the hypothesis if the two parties clearly and unambiguously
changed as expected.
The party history of the 1960s makes it clear that other factors, besides party con-
trol of the presidency, influence the development of party theories of foreign intervention.
50 | LEWIS
A historical contingency, the emergence of the anti-war New Left and the hawkish New
Right in the postwar era, worked in opposition to the logic of party ideology develop-
ment. This may have to do with the fact that the parties had polarized over a different
aspect of party ideology—attitudes toward social democratic reforms—during the previ-
ous three decades. Since the GOP had developed an anti-communist identity in the after-
math of the Democratic New Deal, and scored considerable political points for this
position in the 1950s, the nature of foreign policy during the Cold War encouraged GOP
hawkishness in the 1960s despite opposition to the presidency. The ideological changes
of the 1950s, in which an anti-communist Republican Party became hawkish on foreign
policy, established structures of Republican Party ideology that had lasting influence for
several decades afterward.
Based on party attitudes expressed in response to the ANES survey question about
foreign intervention, Republicans have almost always been more interventionist than
Democrats since they first surpassed the Democrats in 1956 (see Figure 1). The excep-
tions to this rule can be partly explained by party control of the presidency, but these
have been marginal moves between the two parties within a larger sphere of Republican
interventionism. Since Republicans established an eight-point difference between the
two parties in 1960, that gap has only narrowed to less than four points on a few occa-
sions. In 1968, after the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the gap narrowed to
two points. In 1980, after the Carter administration, the gap narrowed to three points.
In the 1990s, during the Clinton administration, the gap narrowed to two points in
1996, and by 1998 the Democrats actually became one point more interventionist.
Most recently, in 2012, during the Obama administration, the gap narrowed back to
just two points.
FIGURE 1. Differences Between Republican and Democratic Levels of Foreign Interventionism
Note: Shaded time periods represent Democratic Party control of the presidency. The y axis is based on
American National Election Studies survey questions asking respondents if Americans should “not con-
cern ourselves with problems in other parts of the world” (data set variables VAR 480040, VAR
520051, and VCF0823). It is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Democrats giving the interven-
tionist response from the percentage of Republicans giving the interventionist response (see Appendix 1
for complete data). Thus, positive numbers indicate that a greater percentage of Republicans gave the
interventionist response, while negative numbers indicate that a greater percentage of Democrats gave
the interventionist response.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 51
New Right Republicans and New Left Democrats, 1969–1993
Winning 4 of 5 presidential elections between 1968 and 1988, the Republican
Party gained long-term control of the presidency in the 1970s and 80s. During that time
period, GOP ideology embraced a strong presidency and remained strongly intervention-
ist on foreign policy. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, moved quickly away from
the strong executive theory of governance that had dominated the party since the New
Deal. In its place, the party embraced the New Left’s anti-executive power and anti-war
sentiments. This relative shift in the two parties’ ideologies is in accordance with the
hypothesis.
The Anti-war Left and Democratic Doves
After relinquishing control of the presidency in 1969, the Democratic Party quick-
ly moved to become anti-imperial: in its opposition to both an imperial presidency and
an imperial foreign policy. The party was able to move quickly because all of the necessary
ingredients for party ideology change were present from the moment Nixon took office: a
political issue to debate (the Vietnam War), an insurgent party faction (the Anti-war
Left), and party entrepreneurs with resources. In 1972, the party nominated anti-war can-
didate George McGovern. The 1972 platform retained some of the internationalist planks
of previous Democratic Party platforms, but the McGovern wing of the party dominated,
and the platform also made explicit criticisms of the Vietnam War now being carried on
by the Republicans:
We believe that war is a waste of human life. We are determined to end forthwith a war
which has cost 50,000 American lives, $150 billion of our resources, that has divided us
from each other, drained our national will and inflicted incalculable damage to countless
people. We will end that war by a simple plan that need not be kept secret: The immediate
total withdrawal of all Americans from Southeast Asia...The U.S. will no longer seek to
determine the political future of the nations of Indo-China. (DNC 1972)
In 1976, the party once again nominated a candidate who drew a contrast with the execu-
tive imperialism and foreign interventionism of the Nixon administration. The 1976
platform criticized GOP unilateralism and secret conduct of foreign policy and called for
a reduction of spending by five to seven billion dollars.
16
After the Watergate scandal, the Democrats’ criticism of Republican imperialism
was effective and the party regained control of the White House in 1977. After taking
office, Carter was soon met with international emergencies that caused him to question
the noninterventionist ideology of his party. Even though Carter made interventionist
moves during his term in office, he lost his reelection bid in 1980, and so the period from
1977 to 1980 did not represent a long-term change in party control of the presidency. As
such, it was less likely that all of the necessary components would emerge within that
16. After Carter assumed the Presidency for one term, however, the Democratic Party boasted in its
1980 platform of increasing defense spending every year since 1976.
52 | LEWIS
short time period. As expected, there was no durable shift in the relative ideological posi-
tions of the party. In nominating Reagan in 1980, the GOP had become no less interven-
tionist on foreign policy, vis-a-vis the Democrats, than they had been in 1976. The 1984
Democratic Party platform criticized the Republican administration for an arms race, and
called for disarmament instead. The party continued to call for decreased defense spend-
ing—especially with the Cold War coming to a close.
Neoconservatives and Republican Hawks
In 1968, the GOP was still using the anti-war rhetoric that would shortly become a
key part of Democratic Party ideology.
The entire nation has been profoundly concerned by hastily extemporized, undeclared land
wars which embroil massive U.S. armed forces thousands of miles from our shores. It is time
to realize that not every international conflict is susceptible of solution by American ground
forces...We will return to one of the cardinal principles of the last Republican Administra-
tion: that American interests are best served by cooperative multilateral action with our
allies rather than by unilateral U.S. action.” (RNC 1968)
However, by 1972, the GOP was still prosecuting the war in Vietnam that it had just
recently been criticizing—although with promises that peace was at hand. Republican
ideology developed in the 1970s to become more interventionist. As the anti-war New
Democratic Left grew in importance, neoconservatives began leaving the Democratic Par-
ty for the Republican Party. The 1972 GOP platform criticized the Democratic Party’s
newfound dovishness and isolationism:
The nation’s frustrations had fostered a dangerous spirit of isolationism among our people.
America’s influence in the world had waned...We believe in keeping America strong. In
times past, both major parties shared that belief. Today this view is under attack by mili-
tants newly in control of the Democratic Party. To the alarm of free nations everywhere, the
New Democratic Left now would undercut our defenses and have America retreat into virtu-
al isolation, leaving us weak in a world still not free of aggression and threats of aggression.
We categorically reject this slash-now, beg-later, approach to defense policy. (RNC 1972)
Nixon’s successor after his resignation, Gerald Ford, retained Secretary of State Kissinger
and largely continued Nixon’s foreign policies. The 1976 ANES survey found that
Republican respondents were now 11 points more interventionist than Democrats.
Despite the Democratic Party’s short-term control of the presidency from 1977 to
1980, Republicans remained more interventionist on foreign policy than Democrats, and
neoconservatives continued to change party affiliation. In the 1980 campaign, Ronald
Reagan brought on Democratic Party hawk Jeane Kirkpatrick as a foreign policy advisor.
After the 1980 election, Kirkpatrick became ambassador to the UN. During the Reagan
administration, the GOP continued its hawkish foreign policy ideology and continued to
criticize Democratic foreign policy as using “the rhetoric of freedom, but in practice” fol-
lowing “a policy of withdrawal and isolation” (RNC 1984). Defense spending rose to
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 53
record peacetime levels in the 1980s, and America intervened in a variety of international
conflicts whether through funding, supplying weapons, CIA operations, or military inter-
vention. The 1990 ANES survey found that Republicans were a record 16 points more
interventionist than Democrats. After the Cold War, Reagan’s successor, George H. W.
Bush, continued Republican interventionist foreign policy by sending troops to Panama
and the Persian Gulf in quick, decisive military victories. Bush’s vision of a “new world
order,” in which peaceful states would join together to rebuff aggressor states set the stage
for the foreign policy ideology of the Democratic Party in the 1990s. As predicted by the
hypothesis, between 1969 and 1992, the Republican Party became clearly more interven-
tionist while the Democratic Party became clearly less interventionist on foreign policy.
Liberal Internationalist Democrats and Paleoconservative
Republicans, 1993–2001
During the eight years of Bill Clinton’s Democratic presidency, the two parties’ ide-
ologies concerning foreign intervention shifted as different factions within the parties
became more vocal. Within the Democratic Party, the Anti-war McGovernites began to
hold less sway. In their place, a “New Democrats” faction—led by Bill Clinton, Al Gore,
and the more centrist Democratic Leadership Council—held the ideologically dominant
position. Within the Republican Party, the hawkish neoconservative branch of the party
became less prominent, while an isolationist paleoconservative strand emerged.
The Clinton administration continued the foreign interventionist policies of the
Republican Party; like President Bush, Clinton was not afraid for America to assume its
new role as the world’s lone superpower. Like the Republican Party before it, Democratic
Party ideology developed in a way that called on the use of force to spread democracy, and
changed to support an increased defense budget: “The Clinton-Gore administration has
actively promoted the consolidation and spread of democracy and human rights...The
administration has ensured that America is prepared to fight alongside others when we
can, and alone when we must. We have defeated attempts to cut our defense budget irre-
sponsibly” (DNC 1996). Following the foreign policy of his predecessor, Clinton ordered
military interventions in Somalia, Yugoslavia, Haiti, and Iraq. As the GOP criticized the
Democratic Party for these interventions, the Democrats responded in their 1996 and
2000 party platforms by calling the Republicans isolationists. In 1996, they wrote: “The
Dole-Gingrich Congress and the Republican Party have a different approach to America’s
security. Too often they would force America to go it alone—or not at all....The Repub-
lican Party too often has neglected diplomatic opportunities [and] slashed the budgets
necessary for diplomatic successes” (DNC 1996). The 1998 ANES survey found that, for
the first time since 1952, Democratic respondents had become more interventionist than
Republican respondents. In 2000, the platform explained: “Some Republicans believe
America should turn away from the world. They oppose using our armed forces as part of
international solutions, even when regional conflicts threaten our interests and our val-
ues” (DNC 2000).
54 | LEWIS
As the Democratic Party turned away from the Anti-war Left, and toward New
Democratic foreign policy ideology, the Republican Party turned toward its older isola-
tionist ideology. Republicans in Congress criticized the Clinton administration’s foreign
interventions. The 2000 platform wrote: “the current administration has casually sent
American armed forces on dozens of missions without clear goals, realizable objectives,
favorable rules of engagement, or defined exit strategies” (RNC 2000). One Democratic
columnist observed in 1994: “These days, Republicans are intent on gaining partisan
profit from President Bill Clinton’s foreign-policy travails. Yet, GOP leaders agree on lit-
tle other than their opposition to administration policies that, ironically, often mirror
those of Republican predecessors. GOP rhetoric has grown more partisan even as the Pres-
ident’s policy has become less so” (Borosage 1994). In 1996, populist isolationist Repub-
lican Pat Buchanan had his best showing in the Republican Party presidential primaries.
The 1996 platform was the first since the 1940s to criticize the UN—and did so at
length. In the 2000 presidential debates between George W. Bush and Al Gore, Gover-
nor Bush criticized the Clinton administration’s international interventionism, and
famously pledged to have a “humble” foreign policy that focused on American interests.
This position only became remarkable when President Bush prosecuted the war in Iraq
and justified it on the idea of spreading democracy. Between 1993 and 2000, the ideolo-
gies of the two parties developed as expected.
Hawkish Republicans and Dovish Democrats, 2001–2009
From 2001 to 2009, long-term party control of the presidency shifted to the Republi-
can Party. During this time, the two parties’ ideologies reverted back to the 1969–1993
dynamics: the GOP once again became the party with a more interventionist foreign policy
ideology and the Democratic Party once again became the party with a less interventionist
ideology. The 1960s–70s anti-war wing of the Democratic Party, dormant during the 1990s,
revived during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars instigated by a Republican administration.
The 9/11 attacks ensnared the parties in foreign policy debate in a way that shifted par-
ty theories of intervention much more quickly than typically occurs with change in party
control of the White House. According to the 2002 ANES survey, Republicans returned to
being a full 14 points more interventionist than Democrats (a spread not seen since 1992),
and this double-digit gap persisted throughout the Bush administration. As the Iraq War
became more and more unpopular, Democratic Party ideology became more and more dov-
ish, and more and more critical of a now-hawkish Republican Party. The 2004 platform crit-
icized President Bush for unilateralism and militarism: “the Bush Administration...rush to
force before exhausting diplomacy. They bully rather than persuade. They act alone when
they could assemble a team” (DNC 2004). In 2008, the Democratic Party nominated anti-
war candidate Barrack Obama, rather than Hillary Clinton, and the 2008 platform criticized
the Bush administration for “rushing us into an ill-considered war in Iraq” (DNC 2008).
The Republican Party, on the other hand, nominated foreign policy hawk John McCain.
The changes in the two parties between 2001 and 2009 can be understood in the light of the
institutional logic of party ideology development.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 55
Conclusion
From 1900 to 2009, long-term party control of the presidency changed nine times, and
in every instance but one (1961–69) the parties’ ideologies with regard to foreign policy
evolved as expected (see Table 2). The political institutional theory of party ideology develop-
ment hypothesizes that changes in long-term party control of the presidency provide incen-
tives for party actors to change their parties’ theories of foreign intervention, but that party
actors do not always have the resources and opportunities to act upon those incentives because
of the multitude of other factors—both socioeconomic and historical institutional—that
influence party ideology dynamics. That the nine instances of change in long-term party con-
trol of the presidency resulted in eight instances of change in party ideologies is remarkable. It
is unlikely that these two factors appeared together so often by coincidence.
In 2009, Democrats regained long-term control of the presidency, and although it
took several years to accomplish, the ideologies of the two parties changed as expected.
TABLE 2
Party Control of the Presidency and Party Theories of Foreign Intervention (Results)
Time Period
Independent Variable:
Change in Long-Term
Party Control
of the Presidency
Dependent Variable:
Change in Relative
Party Ideologies
as Expected?
1 Progressive Era and Republican
Empire
1900–1913
Republican
Presidents
Yes: Republicans moved more toward
intervention than Democrats
2 World War I and Wilsonian
Internationalism
1913–1921
Democratic
President
Yes: Democrats moved more toward
intervention than Republicans
3 Interwar Era
1921–1933
Republican
Presidents
Yes: Republicans moved more toward
intervention than Democrats
4 Democratic New Deal and
World War II
1933–1953
Democratic
Presidents
Yes: Democrats moved more toward
intervention than Republicans
5 Republican
Anti-Communism
1953–1961
Republican
President
Yes: Republicans moved more toward
intervention than Democrats
6 Democratic Cold War
1961–1969
Democratic
Presidents
No: Democrats did not clearly move more
toward intervention than Republicans
7 Republican Cold War
1969–1993
Republican
Presidents
Yes: Republicans moved more toward
intervention than Democrats
8 Clinton Internationalism
1993–2001
Democratic
President
Yes: Democrats moved more toward
intervention than Republicans
9 Bush War on Terror
2001–2009
Republican
President
Yes: Republicans moved more toward
intervention than Democrats
56 | LEWIS
During the Bush 43 administration, opposition to executive imperialism was an article of
faith among Democrats, while Republicans embraced a strong presidency. During this
time, conservative political and legal theorists renewed their development of a unitary
theory of the executive (Skowronek 2009). However, since taking control of the presiden-
cy, Democrats and Republicans have changed roles with Republican supporters of a
strong executive taking a back seat in the party to those critical of executive usurpation.
In 2014, President Obama decided to bypass an intransigent Congress by using the “pen”
and “phone.” Republicans decried Obama’s decision to govern unilaterally as unconstitu-
tional. As expected, the two parties’ theories of presidential power have become very dif-
ferent from what they were during the Bush administration.
The two parties’ theories of foreign intervention have likewise changed dramatical-
ly. During the Obama administration, a libertarian-leaning Tea Party faction within the
Republican Party, dormant during the Bush administration, emerged in opposition to
Democratic control of the national government. Libertarian-leaning Republicans who
criticized domestic intervention in the economy and foreign intervention overseas in both
the Bush and Obama administrations began to have a more prominent voice in the party.
While the 2012 Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, refused to reverse the GOP’s
previous interventionist stance on foreign policy, the 2016 nominee, Donald Trump,
explicitly criticized the Iraq War and Bush-era foreign interventionism, and instead
called for an “America first” foreign policy. The popularity of Trump’s isolationism
among Republican voters has surprised many political observers, but it should not.
Knowing what we do about changes in party control of the presidency, we should have
expected this. What will be interesting to see is if Trump’s election represents yet another
change in long-term party control of the presidency—and whether President Trump and
the Republicans will abandon the noninterventionist ideology they developed in recent
years.
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60 | LEWIS
Appendix 1
Percentage of Respondents Expressing a More Interventionist
Attitude
Year
President
(Independent
Variable) Democrats Independents Republicans
Party Difference
(Dependent
Variable)
1948 D 48 44 25
1952 D 38 25 213
1956 R 57 56 61 4
1958 R 57 58 61 4
1960 R 64 69 72 8
1968 D 74 71 76 2
1972 R 77 67 83 6
1976 R 62 68 73 11
1980 D 78 67 81 3
1984 R 67 71 80 13
1986 R 62 63 74 12
1988 R 61 62 75 14
1990 R 62 51 78 16
1992 R 67 62 81 14
1994 D 65 58 71 6
1996 D 72 64 74 2
1998 D 82 74 81 21
2000 D 69 61 73 4
2002 R 72 61 86 14
2004 R 75 65 86 11
2008 R 65 55 75 10
2012 D 63 60 65 2
Average 65.44 63.32 71.89 6.45
Note: These data were compiled from the American National Election Studies data set variables VAR
480040, VAR 520051, and VCF0823. Figures are rounded to the nearest whole number.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PARTIES’ IDEOLOGIES | 61
