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JANUARY 2014
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From the House of Commons' Vote to the US Congress' Role on Syria War:
Are Parliamentary Prerogatives
in Foreign Policy Gaining New Momentum?
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Executive branches of governments have always enjoyed a primacy in managing foreign policy and waging war. However, the highly influential parliamentary debates in the United Kingdom, the United States or France on the Syrian conflict have given rise to the perception that parliaments are becoming increasingly influent in first-order international affairs. When looking at recent developments concerning the Syrian crisis, could it be that parliamentary prerogatives in matters of foreign and defense policy are gaining new momentum? In fact, in this policy area the relations between political-parliamentary forces tend to weigh in more prominently than provided for by existing norms or constitutional conventions, regardless of the fact that dissenting parliamentary positions are made official through parliamentary deliberations. In the last few months, governments have continued to ask parliaments to "take it or leave it", but where parliaments would have once ordinarily abided by the executive's decisions, they are more and more frequently calling them into question. Fabio Longo analyses whether, in light of the current fragmentation of power in foreign policy making processes, is it
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reasonable to add national parliaments to the list of the numerous actors (public and private, government- and non-government-related) that effectively set the course of foreign policies, and if this represents a cross-national general trend or it has rather to be regarded asan exception. With its vote on Syria in August 2013, the UK House of Commons delivered a historic defeat to the Prime Minister and its cabinet on a matter of military policy. Juliet Kaarbo and Daniel Kenealy examine that vote, and the events that led to it, by identifying the conditions that produced this unexpected outcome. The analysis of Raffaella Baritono outlines the U.S. Congress' role in foreign policy-making and its prerogatives in a constitutional context that attributes the same power to the President. the article points out the political background of the Congress'
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emergence as an autonomous and challenging actor. Moreover, it briefly examines the dynamics and contradictions of the relations between the US Congress and the Presidency in the current scenario. In conclusion, Anna Herranz-Surrallés examines whether this momentum can also be observed in the European foreign and security policy. Far from this, the article argues that, rather than a consistent tendency towards a stronger role of parliaments, what we can notice is a series of divergent trends leading to a patchwork of parliamentary oversight at national, supranational and transnational levels. The analysis ends with some reflections on the prospects of a more effective multi-level parliamentary oversight of the CFSP/CSDP.
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Index
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Fabio
Longo
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Edward Samuel Corwin coined an effective expression (that would later enjoy great fame) to describe the American Constitution as an invitation - addressed to the President as well as Congress - "to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy"...
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Juliet Kaarbo,
Daniel Kenealy
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On 29 August 2013 the UK House of Commons inflicted the first defeat on a Prime Minister over a matter of war and peace since 1782. The Commons, recalled by David Cameron to debate and vote on the prospect of military action against Syria, surprised the Prime Minister...
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Raffaella
Baritono
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No later than the 1950s, one of the most important American constitutionalists of the 20th century, Edwin Corwin, highlighted how contradictory the constitutional text was as far as foreign policy was concerned. Corwin claimed that the relations of President and Congress in the diplomatic field...
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Anna
Herranz-Surrallés
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The decision of the House of Commons not to support the government's plan to join a military action against the Syrian regime last August came as a surprise to many. In times when representative democracy is often criticised for the rigidity of party discipline...
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Research Team
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Arturo Varvelli and Antonio Zotti (Coordinators), Raffaella Baritono, Anna Herranz-Surrallés,
Juliet Kaarbo, Daniel Kenealy, Fabio Longo
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ISSN N° 2281-3152
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