This book examines how presidents utilize their emergency powers, as well as factors that influence presidential rhetori
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Table of contents :
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Presidential Rhetoric and US Foreign Policy
The Iran Case
Insights from the Literature
Presidents and Unilateral Politics
Rhetoric and Demonstrate Strength and Resolve in Foreign Policy
Economic Sanctions
Book Overview
References
2 Presidential Powers and National Emergencies
Defining National Emergencies
Emergency Powers and the Constitution
Emergency Powers Legislation
Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917
National Emergencies Act of 1976
International Emergency Economic Powers Act
Conclusion
References
3 Presidential Rhetoric and National Emergencies
Measuring the Tone of Presidential Rhetoric
Data Collection and National Emergencies
Sentiment Analysis and Assessing Tone of Sanction Rhetoric
Measuring the Tone of Text Documents
Explaining the Tone of Sanction Rhetoric
Model Specification and Variables
President-Specific Contexts
Political & Electoral Contexts
Domestic Economic Conditions
Model Results and Discussion
Conclusion
References
4 Sanction Rhetoric and Sanction Activities
Economic Sanctions and Presidential Rhetoric
Explaining the Level of Economic Sanction Activities
Scope of Sanction Activities
Model Specification and Variables
Results and Discussion
Conclusion
References
5 Tough Talk in US Foreign Policy
Overview of the Book
Future Directions for Research
References
Index
Talking Tough in U.S. Foreign Policy Executive Actions, National Emergencies, and Economic Sanctions Yu Ouyang · Michael A. Morgan
The Evolving American Presidency
Series Editors Michael A. Genovese, Political Science & International Relations, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA Todd L. Belt, Graduate School of Political Management, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
This series is stimulated by the clash between the presidency as invented and the presidency as it has developed. Over time, the presidency has evolved and grown in power, expectations, responsibilities, and authority. Adding to the power of the presidency have been wars, crises, depressions, industrialization. The importance and power of the modern presidency makes understanding it so vital. How presidents resolve challenges and paradoxes of high expectations with limited constitutional resources is the central issue in modern governance and the central theme of this book series.
Yu Ouyang · Michael A. Morgan
Talking Tough in U.S. Foreign Policy Executive Actions, National Emergencies, and Economic Sanctions
Yu Ouyang Department of History, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Purdue University Northwest Hammond, IN, USA
Michael A. Morgan Department of Political Science Marietta College Marietta, OH, USA
ISSN 2945-6150 ISSN 2945-6169 (electronic) The Evolving American Presidency ISBN 978-3-031-39492-8 ISBN 978-3-031-39493-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39493-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © John Rawsterne/patternhead.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents
1
1 2 4 5
Presidential Rhetoric and US Foreign Policy The Iran Case Insights from the Literature Presidents and Unilateral Politics Rhetoric and Demonstrate Strength and Resolve in Foreign Policy Economic Sanctions Book Overview References
7 9 10 11
2
Presidential Powers and National Emergencies Defining National Emergencies Emergency Powers and the Constitution Emergency Powers Legislation Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 National Emergencies Act of 1976 International Emergency Economic Powers Act Conclusion References
17 17 18 19 20 23 25 27 28
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Presidential Rhetoric and National Emergencies Measuring the Tone of Presidential Rhetoric Data Collection and National Emergencies Sentiment Analysis and Assessing Tone of Sanction Rhetoric
33 38 38 41 v
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CONTENTS
Measuring the Tone of Text Documents Explaining the Tone of Sanction Rhetoric Model Specification and Variables Model Results and Discussion Conclusion References
42 50 50 54 62 62
4
Sanction Rhetoric and Sanction Activities Economic Sanctions and Presidential Rhetoric Explaining the Level of Economic Sanction Activities Scope of Sanction Activities Model Specification and Variables Results and Discussion Conclusion References
67 70 73 73 74 79 88 89
5
Tough Talk in US Foreign Policy Overview of the Book Future Directions for Research References
Index
95 96 99 100 103
List of Figures
Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.
3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8
Fig. 3.9 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 4.5 Fig. 4.6
Distribution of document sentiment scores Distribution of document sentiment scores (by sanction target) Distribution of document sentiment scores (by president) Sanction rhetoric over time (by sanction target) Sanction rhetoric over time (by president) Varying intercepts by sanction target (Model 5) Average sanction rhetoric sentiment by president (Model 5) Inflation rate and average sanction rhetoric sentiment (Model 5) Unemployment rate and average sanction rhetoric sentiment (Model 5) Total individuals and entities added to sanction program (by target) Total individuals and entities removed from sanction program (by target) Sanction rhetoric sentiment and total added to sanction program (Model 3) Sanction rhetoric sentiment and total removed from sanction program (Model 6) Unemployment rate and total added to sanction program (Model 3) Regime difference and total added to sanction program (Model 3)
44 45 46 48 49 58 59 60 61 75 76 83 84 87 88
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List of Tables
Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 4.1
List of sanction programs (1979–present) Results of Bayesian multilevel linear regression models Results of Bayesian multilevel zero-inflation negative binomial models
40 55 81
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CHAPTER 1
Presidential Rhetoric and US Foreign Policy
On June 18, 2019, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan announced that the United States was deploying 1000 troops to the Middle East in response to “hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region” (Smith, 2019). Two days later, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard shot down an American RQ-4 Global Hawk drone over the Strait of Hormuz (Berlinger et al., 2019).1 In response to this latest escalation, President Trump issued Executive Order 13876 on June 24, 2019, which declared a national emergency toward Iran and applied economic sanctions on individuals and entities affiliated with the Iranian government (Trump, 2019a). During the signing ceremony of the order, Trump stated, “These measures represent a strong and proportionate response to Iran’s increasingly provocative actions. We will continue to increase pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its aspirations,” (Trump, 2019b). While the emergency declaration was made in light of recent changes in circumstances, it built upon an existing national emergency declared by President Clinton on March 15, 1995, and continued
1 The United States argued that the drone had been flying over international waters, rather than within Iranian airspace (Berlinger et al., 2019).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Y. Ouyang and M. A. Morgan, Talking Tough in U.S. Foreign Policy, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39493-5_1
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a legacy of rhetorical antagonism and economic coercion that stretches back to the late 1970s (Clinton, 1995).2 The declaration of a national emergency greatly expands the authority of the president, as more than 130 additional statutory powers become available with limited Congressional oversight (Brennon Center, 2023; Goitein, 2019). This additional latitude allows the chief executive to enact economic punishments abroad while also “talking tough” about an adversary to demonstrate competence and assertiveness to their voting constituency. Although national emergencies and their associated economic sanctions play a key role in contemporary American foreign policy, with forty-one active emergencies as of May 2023, research on this topic remains quite limited (Brennan Center, 2023). To better understand factors that influence the development and implementation of national emergencies, we begin with a description of the relationship between the United States and Iran which became highly contentious during the Carter Administration.
The Iran Case By the mid-1970s, Iranian leader Mohammad Reza Shah faced considerable challenges due to a stagnating economy, a weakening base of domestic support, and the growing popularity of his major political rival, Ayatollah Khomeini (Afary, 2022; O’Neil et al., 2018). Despite living in exile, Khomeini had become a “symbol of opposition” for disaffected Iranian citizens through his open criticism of the shah’s push for modernization and perceived dependence on the West, specifically the United States (O’Neil et al., 2018, p. 520).3 The Iranian regime sought to disparage and discredit Khomeini through a coordinated media campaign, highlighted by an article in the government-backed newspaper, Ettelaat, published on January 7, 1978 (Treverton & Klocke, 1988). This effort 2 Ryan Pickrell (2019) notes, “Trump’s responses to these crises with Iran appear to highlight the president’s internal struggle where on one hand, he wants to show strength but on the other hand, he wants to avoid expanded US involvement in conflicts in the Middle East.” 3 Ayatollah Khomeini was exiled in 1964 after vehemently opposing the reform program known as the White Revolution (O’Neil et al., 2018). These reforms, which included privatization of state-owned enterprises and enfranchisement of women, faced intense opposition from segments of Iranian society, which led to protests in 1963 and 1964 that were put down by the Iranian government with coercive force (O’Neil et al., 2018).
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backfired and became a catalyst for widespread protests in Iran, which were met by a harsh government response, even to the point of imposing martial law, which further contributed to public discontent and hostility (O’Neil et al., 2018; Treverton & Klocke, 1988).4 By the end of 1978, government workers began to strike, military units started to defect, and scores of protesters filled the streets of Tehran (O’Neil et al., 2018; Treverton & Klocke, 1988). Reeling from cancer and recognizing that his hold on power was deteriorating rapidly, the Shah fled the country in January 1979 and left a weak provisional government in his wake (Afary, 2022; O’Neil et al., 2018). With a rudderless government in place, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile on February 1, 1979, to a welcoming crowd of over one million and solidified his role as a transitional figure over the next several weeks (Afary, 2022; O’Neil et al., 2018). In April 1979, Iran held a national referendum to become an Islamic republic governed by a new theocratic-republican constitution (Afary, 2022; O’Neil et al., 2018). These institutional changes elevated Khomeini to the position of supreme leader but also precipitated a cascade of policies seeking to remove Western influence from Iranian society (Afary, 2022).5 A flashpoint occurred on October 22, 1979, when President Carter permitted the deposed Shah to enter the United States to receive medical treatment (Longley, 2020). This action by Carter enraged a group of radical college students loyal to Khomeini, who on November 4, 1979, overran the US embassy in Tehran and took more than 60 Americans hostage (Afary, 2022; Longley, 2020).6 The hostages were used as
4 On January 8, 1979, demonstrators in the city of Qom were fired upon by police, resulting in the deaths of twenty individuals and the inspiring additional, larger protests (Treverton & Klocke, 1988). The Iranian government responded with increasing degrees of force with houses of opposition leaders being bombed and the leaders themselves being beaten by groups likely connected with SAVAK (Treverton & Klocke, 1988). 5 For example, the Family Protection Act of 1967, which established relatively progressive standards for marriage, divorce, and custody of children, was annulled (Afary, 2022). 6 The United States embassy was previously occupied by armed Iranian guerilla opera-
tives on February 14, 1979, resulting in the deaths of two Iranians and the wounding of two US Marines (Longley, 2020). This situation was resolved by the decision of Ambassador William H. Sullivan, to reduce the embassy staff from 1400 to approximately 70 personnel as part of a larger agreement with Khomeini’s provisional government (Longley, 2020).
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bargaining chips, with Iran demanding that the United States facilitate the shah’s return to face trial for the alleged crimes committed during his reign (Afary, 2022).7 The Carter administration rejected these terms and President Carter declared a national emergency toward Iran through Executive Order 12170 on November 14, 1979 (Carter, 1979). In this brief executive order, Carter utilized the authority of the recently passed National Emergency Act (NEA) and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to call for wide-reaching economic sanctions that included asset freezes and a trade embargo (Carter, 1979). The economic hardship and political pressure created by this action, along with condemnation by the United Nations and the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, proved insufficient, and Iran continued to hold American hostages until the Algiers Accords were negotiated and accepted on January 19, 1981 (Algiers Accords, 1981; Longley, 2020).8 Although the hostage crisis was finally resolved, US-Iranian relations remained tenuous, and this perception was used to justify a continuation of the national emergency declaration. In fact, the original national emergency regarding Iran has been upheld and renewed annually by each US president since President Carter, with the most recent extension being made on November 8, 2022, by President Biden (Biden, 2022).
Insights from the Literature To better understand the relationship between presidential politics, national emergencies, and their associated economic sanctions, we borrow insights from three distinct academic literatures. In this section, we provide a discussion on how each of the three literatures contributes to the analyses presented in later chapters.
7 The Ayatollah Khomeini did not incite the embassy occupation or taking of hostages explicitly, but later issued a state referring to this action as “the second revolution” and called the embassy an “American spy den in Tehran” (Longley, 2020). 8 Khomeini ordered thirteen hostages to be released on November 17, 1979, and an additional hostage released on July 11, 1980 (Longley, 2020). The remaining hostages were released on January 20, 1981, immediately following the inauguration of President Reagan (Longley, 2020).
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Presidents and Unilateral Politics Neustadt (1990) identifies at least five sources of demands on a president’s time: (1) members of the executive branch; (2) members of Congress; (3) fellow partisans; (4) the public; and (5) foreign affairs. For example, recognizing the role of the public in presidential decisionmaking, Howell (2013, p. 5) notes that “[the public] invest in the president their highest aspirations not just for the federal government, but for the general polity, for their communities and families, and for their own private lives. Constantly, Americans berate their presidents to say more, to do more, to be more.” As such, presidents have incentives to develop policies and take actions that can meet the demands of interested parties and demonstrate leadership abilities. Political scientists now widely accept that presidents have broad discretion and authority in terms of unilateral powers, defined as the “formal capacity to act unilaterally and to make law” on one’s own (Moe & Howell, 1999, p. 132). Specifically, scholars have demonstrated the importance of executive orders (Fine & Warber, 2012; Howell, 2003; Rudalevige, 2021), memorandum (Lowande, 2014; Ouyang & Waterman, 2015), signing statements (Kelley & Marshall, 2010), and proclamations (Belco & Rottinghaus, 2017; Rottinghaus & Maier, 2007) among the president’s options of unilateral action. In particular, executive orders are viewed as a critical instrument of presidential authority because they allow presidents to make policy without asking Congress to enact a law (Mayer, 2001). While their focus in the past was often quite narrow, dealing with routine matters of state, in recent decades presidents used executive orders more broadly to address a wide variety of major policy issues. Much of the research on executive orders examines how many orders are issued and when presidents are most likely to issue them. Many scholars emphasize the role of legislative-executive relations, noting that the composition of the government can influence the propensity of a president to use unilateral executive action. For example, Shull (1997) finds that presidents issue more executive orders during periods of unified government, while Cohen (2000) concludes that the issuance of executive orders is related to the number of Congressional seats held by the president’s party. Likewise, Warber (2006, p. 66) argues that during periods of unified government, presidents issued more routine executive orders. From this perspective, Howell (2003, p. 70) writes,
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Though presidents may want to exercise their unilateral powers more often during periods of divided government, they should have a harder time doing so. When Congress is controlled by the opposite party, legislative restrictions on presidential powers are greatest. Presidents, ironically, enjoy the broadest discretion to act unilaterally precisely when they have the weakest incentives to take advantage of it—during periods of unified government. It is possible then, that the heightened incentives to act unilaterally are canceled out by the losses in discretion to do so, nullifying any effect divided government might have on presidential policymaking.
Beyond issues related to partisanship, scholars have also found that presidents rely on executive orders in the presence of political gridlock when traditional legislative action is improbable (Deering & Maltzman, 1999; Howell, 2003; Moe & Howell, 1999). Consequently, presidents do not have an unfettered ability to issue executive orders without considering the will of Congress (see Howell & Kriner, 2008) or the courts, which in recent years have questioned the legality of various executive orders. Therefore, presidents are wise to lower the risk of congressional or judicial reversal. Despite these risks, as Deering and Maltzman (1999, pp. 770–771) write, A President’s willingness to issue an executive order depends upon both his positive power to get legislation enacted by Congress and his negative power to stop legislation overturning such an executive order. Viewed in this light, presidential decisions regarding executive orders reflect strategic calculation.
Previous research also suggests that there are two presidencies, with one focused on domestic policy and the other on foreign affairs (Wildavsky, 1966). Recent scholarship has found support for this thesis, noting that Congress has the incentive to delegate powers related to foreign policy to the president (Canes-Wrone et al., 2008) and that presidents have greater latitude to use unilateral actions concerning foreign affairs (Chiou & Rothenberg, 2017). Ouyang and Morgan (2019) apply this logic to national emergency policies and note that the declaration, continuation, and termination of national emergencies occur through
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unilateral executive action.9 Moreover, because most national emergency declarations involve foreign policy decisions relating to economic sanctions, insights from the unilateral presidency literature offer an opportunity to connect two seemingly disparate areas of research (Ouyang & Morgan, 2019). Rhetoric and Demonstrate Strength and Resolve in Foreign Policy The public turns to the president when they desire political action. Likewise, presidents respond to the domestic political environment and prioritize their policy agenda accordingly. Specifically, presidents have incentives to engage in foreign policy when their domestic popularity declines, when they are less successful in Congress, and when they wish to divert attention from problematic domestic conditions such as declining economic performance (Andrade & Young, 1996; DeRouen, 2000; Fordham, 1998; Tir & Jasinski, 2008). In other words, presidents prioritize policy decisions strategically and focus on areas where they are most likely to be successful. Thus, if hampered by poor conditions on the domestic front, presidents are more likely to engage in foreign affairs and will do so unilaterally if necessary. How presidents communicate policy positions shapes how the public perceives the attitude and aptitude of the chief executive (Tulis, 1987). To project an image of political resolve, presidents need to utilize language that signals action, decisiveness, and certitude. In particular, presidents often prioritize making credible commitments and conveying political resolve to establish their reputations as authorities in foreign affairs and to appear unyielding in the face of adversity. As Schultz (1998, p. 841) argues, “governments should be sensitive to [conditions that] may affect their ability to make credible threats…. At the same time, foreign states should take into account the signals…and make appropriate inferences.” Smith (1998, p. 633) echoes similar sentiment concerning electoral prospects when noting, “voters want to retain competent leaders and remove incompetent ones.” Demonstrating strong foreign policy leadership is critical for presidents, especially given the broad literature in international relations on the importance of conveying political 9 Of the seventy-six national emergencies since 1979, seventy-one were declared by executive order and the remaining five were declared by proclamation (Waldman, 2023).
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resolve when nations engage in international conflict (see Fearon, 1994; Guisinger & Smith, 2002; Schultz, 1998; Smith, 1998). In particular, the costs associated with appearing to “back down” in foreign affairs incentivize leaders to make statements that would make them appear unyielding in the face of adversity in foreign policy. Presidents not only symbolize the executive office but also serve as a representative of the United States as a whole. Here, George W. Bush’s remarks are instructive and worth quoting at length: First of all, a president has got to be the calcium in the backbone. If I weaken, the whole team weakens. If I’m doubtful, I can assure you there will be a lot of doubt. If my confidence level in our ability declines, it will send ripples throughout the whole organization. I mean, it’s essential that we be confident and determined and united. (Woodward, 2002)
In the context of foreign policy actions, the decision to exercise executive discretion to declare national emergencies represents an opportunity to not only implement desired policies but also to potentially send signals in foreign affairs. As Cooper (2002) explains, “presidential orders can be effective devices for … sending political signals—real or symbolic” (48). Furthermore, “orders that are largely symbolic … often make strong statements of policy … [and] call for awareness…, but they rarely require much beyond consultation and reporting” (Cooper, 2002, p. 48). This is consistent with works on the unilateral presidency which suggest that presidents can use policy directives such as executive orders and proclamations to communicate and appeal to constituency groups (Rottinghaus & Warber, 2015). In addition to appealing symbolically to groups engaged in policyseeking behavior, presidential rhetoric may also hint at policy importance and the scope of enforcement activities relating to national emergencies and their associated economic sanctions program. Many studies, for instance, highlight the importance of presidential rhetoric in policymaking (see Druckman & Holmes, 2004; Whitford & Yates, 2003; Wood et al., 2005; Wood, 2009). Consider the following examples. Examining how the relative optimism of presidential remarks impacts economic performance, Wood et al. (2005) offer an indirect model of rhetoric and the economy. They conclude that optimistic rhetoric alters consumer perceptions of the economic news and consumer sentiment, which will in turn affects the risks that consumers are willing to take in spending decisions.
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In a similar vein, Wood (2009) finds that “presidential saber-rattling” is often used in the foreign policy arena and this rhetoric can lead to unintended domestic consequences. While some scholars argue that presidential rhetoric often falls “on deaf ears” and does not substantially impact policy (see, for instance, Edwards, 2003), the possibility nonetheless exists that the nature of presidential rhetoric relates to specific national emergencies and their associated economic sanctions program. Economic Sanctions Economic sanctions are a specific form of economic statecraft by which a sender state restricts or dissolves commercial ties with a targeted actor as the result of an unresolved policy dispute (Drezner, 2003; Lindsay, 1986; Morgan et al., 2023; Pape, 1997; Peksen, 2019). Theoretically, by suspending market activities and limiting access to vital resources, sanctions place pressure on a target to concede to the sender’s political demands in order to avoid prolonged economic hardship (Drezner, 2003; Lindsay, 1986; Morgan, 2015; Pape, 1997; Peksen, 2019). Due in part to their potential to create substantial policy change with less risk and commitment required than military action, economic sanctions have become an increasingly popular foreign policy tool, especially since the end of the Cold War (Drezner, 2003; Drury, 2001; Morgan et al., 2023; Pape, 1997).10 Despite the continued prevalence of economic sanctions, a burgeoning academic literature demonstrates that these policies often fail to produce substantive political and economic costs for the sender, resulting in political concession being made under a narrow set of circumstances (Kaempfer & Lowenberg, 1988; Kertzer & Brutger, 2016; Morgan & Schwebach, 1997; Pape, 1997; Peterson, 2013; Walentek et al., 2021; Whang, 2011).11 If economic sanctions are unreliable and ineffective, why do state leaders continue to adopt foreign policies that include
10 Drury (2001, p. 487) notes that, “In many cases, the dispute is not severe enough to warrant contemplating the use of military force, for example, when the dispute involves human rights military force is not likely to be considered.” 11 Specifically, targets often insulate themselves from the costs of sanctions by shifting financial assets to other states or by establishing subtitue markets for trade (Morgan & Schwebach 1997; Pape, 1997; Pekson, 2019; Pekson & Peterson, 2016; Peterson, 2013).
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them? The answer to this question depends on how one defines sanction effectiveness. Rather than focusing solely on the instrumental value of economic coercion, recent research suggests that sanction policies may be used for symbolic purposes that signal a desired message to a particular audience. Put differently, leaders may implement economic sanctions to serve as an expression of leadership, a demonstration of political resolve, or a projection of moral authority, rather than achieve tangible policy change from a target (Carter, 2020; Drury, 2001; Galtung, 1967; Lindsay, 1986; Kertzer & Brutger, 2016; McLean & Whang, 2014; Peterson, 2013; Whang, 2011). Based on this approach, economic sanctions garner symbolic power by denouncing the objectionable actions of a target and communicating policy preferences to relevant domestic audiences (Carter, 2020; Drury, 2001; McLean & Whang, 2014; Whang, 2011).12 Specifically, Whang (2011) notes that by creating an image of moral and political conviction; leaders enjoy increased domestic support even if the sanction policy fails to achieve instrumental objectives. Thus, sanctions serve as a relatively low-cost method to demonstrate foreign policy aptitude and commitment to the interests of domestic groups, without completely severing ties with the target (Carter, 2020; Drury, 2001; McLean & Whang, 2014; Whang, 2011).
Book Overview The aforementioned quote from George W. Bush illustrates the president’s unique position to develop, frame, and communicate foreign policy, especially when it pertains to national security. Through the declaration of a national emergency, the president can use rhetorical tools to signal political resolve, project an image of strength, and persuade constituents to support a particular policy position. Moreover, because emergency declarations often come from the president exclusively, this forces the chief executive to “own” the decision and be conscientious about how the policy is justified to the public and implemented toward an adversary. Put simply, if a president wants to signal a policy position
12 Baldwin (2020) contends that leaders of sanctioning states do not intend to send genuine information to the target, but instead seek to satisfy domestic interest groups that have demanded punitive action against the target.
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credibly and produced desired concessions from a target, a national emergency must be presented in a way that communicates the salience of the issue at stake as well as the resolute nature of the sender.13 For the remainder of this book, we examine the relationship between presidential rhetoric and national emergency policies in detail. In Chapter 2, we investigate historical developments related to presidents using executive actions under the authority of emergency powers, with a focus on policies implemented after the National Emergencies Act of 1976. In Chapter 3, we assess the mechanisms which may influence presidential rhetoric regarding national emergency policies. In Chapter 4, we analyze how presidential rhetoric, along with domestic and international factors, influences the number of individuals and entities that are sanctioned through the authority of national emergency policies. In Chapter 5, we discuss our findings in the larger context of American foreign policy and provide avenues for future research in executive actions broadly, and national emergencies specifically.
References Afary, J. (2022, March 25). Iranian Revolution. The Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution Algiers Accords. (1981). https://www.parstimes.com/history/algiers_accords. pdf Andrade, L., & Young, G. (1996). Presidential agenda setting: Influences on the emphasis of foreign policy. Political Research Quarterly, 49(3), 591–605. Baldwin, D. (2020). Economic Statecraft: New Edition. Princeton University Press. Belco, M., & Rottinghaus, B. (2017). The Dual Executive: Unilateral Orders in a Separated and Shared Power System. Stanford University Press. Berlinger, J., Tawfeeq, M., Starr, B., Bozorgmehr, S., & Pleitgen, F. (2019, June 20). Iran Shoots Down US Drone Aircraft, Raising Tensions Further in Strait of Hormuz. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/20/middleeast/ iran-drone-claim-hnk-intl/index.html
13 For coercive policies, including economic sanctions, to be deemed credible by the public, the sender must not only be willing to impose costs on a target, but to endure costs of the policy as well (Drury, 2001; Smith, 1998; Walentek et al., 2021).
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Biden, J. R. (2022). Notice on the Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Iran. The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefingroom/presidential-actions/2022/11/08/notice-on-the-continuation-of-thenational-emergency-with-respect-to-iran-4/ Brennon Center for Justice. (2023). A Guide to Emergency Powers and Their Use. Brennon Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ research-reports/guide-emergency-powers-and-their-use Canes-Wrone, B., Howell, W. G., & Lewis, D. E. (2008). Toward a Broader Understanding of Presidential Power: A Reevaluation of the Two Presidencies Thesis. Journal of Politics, 70(1). https://doi.org/10.1017/S00223816070 80061 Carter, E. B. (2020). Diversionary Cheap Talk: Economic Conditions and US Foreign Policy Rhetoric, 1945–2010. International Interactions, 46(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2020.1688319 Carter, J. (1979). Executive Order 12170—Blocking Iranian Government Property. The American Presidency Project. Retrieved May 9, 2023, from https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-12170blocking-iranian-government-property Chiou, F.-Y., & Rothenberg, L. S. (2017). The Enigma of Presidential Power: Parties, Policies, and Strategic Uses of Unilateral Action. Cambridge University Press. Clinton, W. J. (1995). Executive Order 12957—Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to the Development of Iranian Petroleum Resources. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executiveorder-12957-prohibiting-certain-transactions-with-respect-the-development Cooper, P. J. (2002). By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action. University Press of Kansas. Deering, C. J., & Maltzman, F. (1999). The Politics of Executive Orders: Legislative Constraints on Presidential Power. Political Research Quarterly, 52(December), 767–783. Derouen, K. (2000). Presidents and the diversionary use of force: A research note. International Studies Quarterly, 44(2), 317–328. Drezner, D. W. (2003). The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion. International Organization, 57 (3). https://doi.org/10.1017/s0020818303573052 Druckman, J. N., & Holmes, J. W. (2004). Does Presidential Rhetoric Matter? Priming and Presidential Approval. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 34(4), 755– 778. Drury, A. C. (2001). Sanctions as Coercive Diplomacy: The U.S. President’s Decision to Initiate Economic Sanctions. Political Research Quarterly, 54(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290105400301 Edwards, G. C. (2003). On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit. Yale University Press.
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Fearon, J. D. (1994). Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes. American Political Science Review, 88(3), 577–592. Fine, J. A., & Warber, A. L. (2012). Circumventing Adversity: Executive Orders and Divided Government. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 42(June), 256–274. Fordham, B. (1998). Partisanship, Macroeconomic Policy, and U.S. Uses of Force, 1949–1994. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 42(4), 418–439. Galtung, J. (1967). On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions, With Examples from the Case of Rhodesia. World Politics, 19(3). https://doi.org/ 10.2307/2009785 Goitein, E. (2019). The Alarming Scope of the President’s Emergency Powers. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/pre sidential-emergency-powers/576418/ Guisinger, A., & Smith, A. (2002). Honest Threats: The Interaction of Reputation and Political Institutions in International Crises. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 46(2), 175–200. Howell, W. G. (2003). Power without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action. Princeton University Press. Howell, W. G. (2013). Thinking About the Presidency: The Primacy of Power. Princeton University Press. Howell, W. G., & Kriner, D. L. (2008). Power Without Persuasion: Identifying Executive Influence. In B. A. Rockman & R. W. Waterman (Eds.), Presidential Leadership: The Vortex of Power (pp. 105–144). Oxford University Press. Kaempfer, W. H., & Lowenberg, A. D. (1988). The Theory of International Economic Sanctions: A Public Choice Approach. American Economic Review, 78(4). Kelley, C. S., & Marshall, B. W. (2010). Going it Alone: The Politics of Signing Statements from Reagan to Bush II. Social Science Quarterly, 91(March), 168– 187. Kertzer, J. D., & Brutger, R. (2016). Decomposing Audience Costs: Bringing the Audience Back into Audience Cost Theory. American Journal of Political Science, 60(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12201 Krause, G. A., & Cohen, J. E. (2000). Opportunity, Constraints, and the Development of the Institutional Presidency: The Issuance of Executive Orders, 1939–96. Journal of Politics, 62(February), 88–114. Lindsay, J. M. (1986). Trade Sanctions As Policy Instruments: A ReExamination. International Studies Quarterly, 30(2). https://doi.org/10. 2307/2600674 Longley, R. (2020). Iran Hostage Crisis: Events, Causes, and Aftermath. ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/iran-hostage-crisis-4845968 Lowande, K. S. (2014). After the Orders: Presidential Memoranda and Unilateral Action. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 44(December), 724–741.
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Mayer, K. R. (2001). With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power. Princeton University Press. McLean, E. V., & Whang, T. (2014). Designing Foreign Policy: Voters, Special Interest Groups, and Economic Sanctions. Journal of Peace Research, 51(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343314533811 Moe, T. M., & Howell, W. G. (1999). The Presidential Power of Unilateral Action. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 15(March), 132–179. Morgan, T. C. (2015). Hearing the noise: Economic sanctions theory and anomalous evidence. International Interactions, 41(4). https://doi.org/10. 1080/03050629.2015.1037710 Morgan, T. C., & Schwebach, V. L. (1997). Fools Suffer Gladly: The Use of Economic Sanctions in International Crises. International Studies Quarterly, 41(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/0020-8833.00032 Morgan, T. C., Syropoulos, C., & Yotov, Y. V. (2023). Economic Sanctions: Evolution, Consequences, and Challenges. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 37 (1). https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.37.1.3 Neustadt, R. E. (1990). Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan. The Free Press. O’Neil, P. H., Karl Fields, & Don Share. (2018). Cases in Comparative Politics (6th ed.). W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Ouyang, Y., & Morgan, M. A. (2019). The Contemporary Presidency: How Presidents Utilize Their Emergency Powers. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 49(3), 718–732. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12588 Ouyang, Y., & Waterman, R. W. (2015). How Legislative (In)Activity, Ideological Divergence, and Divided Government Impact Executive Unilateralism: A Test of Three Theories. Congress & the Presidency, 42(3), 317–341. Pape, R. A. (1997). Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work. International Security, 22(2). https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.22.2.90 Peksen, D. (2019). When Do Imposed Economic Sanctions Work? A Critical Review of the Sanctions Effectiveness Literature. Defence and Peace Economics, 30(6). https://doi.org/10.1080/10242694.2019.1625250 Peksen, D., & Peterson, T. M. (2016). Sanctions and Alternate Markets: How Trade and Alliances Affect the Onset of Economic Coercion. Political Research Quarterly, 69(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912915620049 Peterson, T. M. (2013). Sending a Message: The Reputation Effect of US Sanction Threat Behavior. International Studies Quarterly, 57 (4). https://doi. org/10.1111/isqu.12017 Pickrell, R. (2019, September 22). Here’s What Trump, His Advisers, and the US Military Were Talking About Striking After Iran Shot Down a US Drone. Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/what-us-planned-to-strikeafter-iran-downed-us-drone-2019-9
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Rottinghaus, B., & Maier, J. (2007). The Power of Decree: Presidential Use of Executive Proclamations, 1977–2005. Political Research Quarterly, 60(June), 338–343. Rottinghaus, B., & Warber, A. L. (2015). Unilateral Orders as Constituency Outreach: Executive Orders, Proclamations, and the Public Presidency. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 45(June), 289–309. Rudalevige, A. (2021). By Executive Order: Bureaucratic Management and the Limits of Presidential Power. Princeton University Press. Schultz, K. A. (1998). Domestic Opposition and Signaling in International Crises. American Political Science Review, 92(4). https://doi.org/10.2307/ 2586306 Shull, S. A. (1997). Presidential-Congressional Relations: Policy and Time Approaches. University of Michigan Press. Smith, A. (1998). International Crises and Domestic Politics. American Political Science Review, 92(3). https://doi.org/10.2307/2585485 Smith, D. (2019). US to Send 1,000 More Troops to Middle East, Citing “Hostile Behavior” by Iran. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ us-news/2019/jun/17/us-to-send-1000-additional-troops-to-the-middleeast-citing-hostile-behavior Tir, J., & Jasinski, M. (2008). Domestic-Level Diversionary Theory of War: Targeting Ethnic Minorities. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 52(5), 641–664. Treverton, G. F., & Klocke, J. (1988). The Fall of the Shah of Iran. Trump, D. J. (2019a). Executive Order 13876—Imposing Sanctions With Respect to Iran. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ documents/executive-order-13876-imposing-sanctions-with-respect-iran Trump, D. J. (2019b). Remarks on Signing the Executive Order on Iran Sanctions and an Exchange With Reporters. The American Presidency Project. Tulis, J. K. (1987). The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton University Press. Waldman, M. (2023). Declared National Emergencies Under the National Emergencies Act. Brennon Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter. org/our-work/research-reports/declared-national-emergencies-under-nat ional-emergencies-act Walentek, D., Broere, J., Cinelli, M., Dekker, M. M., & Haslbeck, J. M. B. (2021). Success of Economic Sanctions Threats: Coercion, Information and Commitment. International Interactions, 47 (3). https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03050629.2021.1860034 Warber, A. L. (2006). Executive Orders and the Modern Presidency: Legislating from the Oval Office. Lynne Rienner Publishers. Whang, T. (2011). Playing to the Home Crowd? Symbolic Use of Economic Sanctions in the United States. International Studies Quarterly, 55(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00668.x
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Whitford, A. B., & Yates, J. (2003). Policy Signals and Executive Governance: Presidential Rhetoric in the War on Drugs. Journal of Politics, 65(4), 995– 1012. Wildavsky, A. (1966). The Two Presidencies. Society, 4(2). https://doi.org/10. 1007/bf02810961 Wood, B. D. (2009). Presidential Saber Rattling and the Economy. American Journal of Political Science, 53(3), 695–709. Wood, B. D., Owens, C. T., & Durham, B. M. (2005). Presidential Rhetoric and the Economy. Journal of Politics, 67 (3), 627–645. Woodward, B. (2002). Bush at War. Simon & Schuster.
CHAPTER 2
Presidential Powers and National Emergencies
Defining National Emergencies Through a combination of implicit constitutional authority and willful congressional delegation, US presidents have long held considerable discretion to exercise emergency powers during times of crisis. For instance, on August 7, 1794, President Washington issued a proclamation that declared a state of emergency, which enabled him to raise and lead a militia force to quell a burgeoning insurgency rooted in resisting federal taxes on distilled spirits (Krom & Krom, 2013; Washington, 1794).1 More recently, on December 15, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14059, which declared a national emergency and placed economic sanctions upon individuals and entities involved in “international drug trafficking – including the illicit production, global sale, and widespread distribution of illegal drugs; the rise of extremely potent drugs such as fentanyl and other synthetic opioids; as well as the growing role of Internet-based drug sales…” (Biden, 2021). These distinct subjects demonstrate the varied and wide application of executive authority due in part to the fact that no official definition of national emergency exists,
1 President Jefferson repealed the excise tax on distilled spirits in 1802 (Krom & Krom, 2013).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Y. Ouyang and M. A. Morgan, Talking Tough in U.S. Foreign Policy, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39493-5_2
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even in federal statutes.2 As a result, the United States has existed continuously under a state of national emergency since March 4, 1933, and currently has forty-one active national emergencies as of the time of this writing (Fuller, 1979; Relyea, 1976; Waldman, 2023). In a recent Congressional Research Service Report, Halchin (2021) attempted to clarify the meaning of a national emergency by identifying four components of an emergency condition including temporal character, potential gravity, governmental role, and the element of response. Based on these factors, a national emergency would be a sudden, unforeseen event that, in the judgment of political officials, has the potential to jeopardize personal and national security, and thus requires a substantive response by the government (Halchin, 2021). Because emergencies arise quickly and require a swift response, existing rules, and procedures are likely to be inadequate or nonexistent. This ambiguous environment creates a dilemma to ensure that the “Executive would have sufficient powers to meet true emergencies while at the same time providing for Executive accountability to Congress and thereby ensuring responsible use of the emergency powers” (Fuller, 1979, p. 1455). In short, though no official definition of a national emergency exists, and its nature is subject to interpretation, developing a response to a crisis could be advantageous for the chief executive to behave “presidentially” and demonstrate competent leadership to both government officials and the wider public.
Emergency Powers and the Constitution As is the case with many aspects of presidential authority, Article II of the Constitution provides only a vague description of powers granted to the president during times of crisis. The absence of precise language is curious, with Fisch (1990, p. 389) noting that “there is no doubt that the Framers considered the question of how to deal with emergencies… and believed that they had fashioned a document which would permit the government to do so effectively.” This is a reasonable conclusion considering that in the lead-up to the Constitutional Convention in 1787; Daniel Shays and thousands of armed citizens protested the tax collection efforts of the Massachusetts state government amid a growing debt crisis 2 In its ruling on United States v. Bishop (1977) the Tenth Circuit of the US Court of Appeals asserted that “a national emergency must be based on conditions beyond the ordinary,” but it did not specify what would constitute such conditions.
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among the public (Yoo, 2009). Although numerous political figures such as Henry Knox and George Washington grossly exaggerated the severity of the threat that Shays’ Rebellion posed, Yoo (2009, p. 11) asserts that “the looming threat of chaos and disorder augured by Shays’ Rebellion was at the forefront of the minds of the delegates as they met in Philadelphia.” It was a nagging reminder that the country needed a new system of governance that allowed for a stronger national government that could deal with exigent circumstances. Recognizing that presidents have invoked emergency powers despite constitutional ambiguity, scholars have offered several explanations for where the rationale for such authority may exist.3 Some claim that the president possesses a limited ability to act during emergencies and must seek congressional approval (Fisher, 2010), while others contend that presidents have broad prerogative powers, especially in the area of foreign policy (Calabresi & Yoo, 2008). Posner and Vermeule (2003) refer to the divergent perspectives on the role of the Constitution during national emergencies as the “accommodation” view vs. the “strict enforcement” view. Furthermore, they note that “because the cost of deference remains constant [in normal times and during emergencies], while the benefit of deference rises during an emergency, judges should be more deferential during emergencies than during normal times” (Posner & Vermeule, 2003, p. 644). Scholarly debate notwithstanding, one factor remains clear: “Times of national emergency have offered the government its best arguments for augmenting its power” (Bucklin, 2001, p. 85).
Emergency Powers Legislation While many conversations among scholars focus on the source of emergency powers in the Constitution, presidents have also been granted substantial authority through statute. In the remainder of this section, we highlight three key legislative measures that specified emergency powers available to the president and helped shape the contemporary role of emergency declarations in American foreign policy.
3 Edelson (2013) argues that “the Constitution does not expressly grant any such power to president” (7).
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Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 As World War I raged in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson prepared for the eventuality of American participation in the conflict by seeking additional authority for the executive branch (Casey et al., 2020). From 1916 to the end of 1917, Congress passed twenty-two statutes that gave the president broad authority over vital sectors of the economy as well as control over international trade, foreign investment, and communication with adversaries of the United States (Casey et al., 2020). Among these new laws were the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) which was enacted on October 6, 1917 (Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917). This statute delegated substantial powers to the president to identify potential national security threats during a time of war and to use economic sanctions to pressure actors deemed enemies of the state (Casey et al., 2020). Specifically, section 5(b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act indicated that the president may restrict economic activities with hostile parties “…through any agency that he may designate, and under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe….”4 In practice, Congress intended for the TWEA to prevent the Central Powers broadly, and Germany in particular, from benefitting from investment in the American economy and to seize German assets as a means of supplementing the need for wartime resources in the United States (Coates, 2018). While some opposed the confiscation of foreign resources on the grounds that it violated property rights and set a dangerous precedent for future investment in the United States, proponents of the TWEA argued that seizing enemy property as part of a larger wartime strategy was consistent with international practice and law (Coates, 2018). For instance, Representative John Jacob Esch (R-WI) stated that “this war is to be won as much by dollars as it is by men and guns…” (Congressional Record, 1917, p. 4863). While the confiscation of foreign property was viewed by many as a temporary measure that would cease at the end of the war, the United States included the retention of seized assets within
4 The TWEA defines an “enemy” as “any individual, partnership, or other body of individuals, of any nationality, resident within the territory … of any nation with which the United States is at war, or resident outside of the United States and doing business within such a territory ….” (Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917).
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the terms of the US-German Peace Treaty signed on August 25, 1921 (United States Department of State, 1921).5 The Trading with the Enemy Act remained a dormant, wartime law until it was used by President Roosevelt to justify a temporary ban on banking activities in 1933 (Casey et al., 2020; Coates, 2018). While section 5(b) authorized the president to “investigate, regulate, or prohibit” financial transactions involving foreign countries, it did not specify that active hostilities with said countries needed to exist (Coates, 2018; Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917). This perspective was first described in a 1932 memo by Walter Wyatt who served as general counsel of the Federal Reserve Board (Coates, 2018). In this memorandum, Wyatt argued that the language of section 5(b) granted the president the authority to stop domestic financial transactions during an emergency (Coates, 2018). Roosevelt capitalized on this interpretation of the TWEA by framing his policy response toward the depression akin to military warfare. Specifically, as part of his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, President Roosevelt stated that he would “ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis – broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe” (Coates, 2018; Roosevelt, 1933). Within days of this address, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act on March 9, 1933, which amended the TWEA to clarify that the president could utilize expanded statutory powers in a time of war as well as “[d]uring any other period of national emergency declared by the President,” (Coates, 2018; Emergency Banking Relief Act, 1933). As economic conditions slowly improved on the home front, the United States would soon be entangled in another military conflict abroad. Responding to the German invasion of Poland, President Roosevelt issued Proclamation 2352 on September 8, 1939, which declared a “limited” national emergency that aimed to increase the strength of the armed forces (Roosevelt, 1939). While not yet declaring military involvement, this declaration allowed the expanded Trading with the Enemy Act to be utilized to apply economic pressure toward the 5 Section 5 of the US-German Peace Treaty states that “All property of the Imperial German Government, or its successor or successors… and all property of the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government, or its successor or successors… shall be retained by the United States of America…” (United States Department of State, 1921).
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Axis Powers. Furthermore, on April 10, 1940, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8389, which froze Norwegian and Danish assets in the United States after these countries had been invaded and occupied by Nazi forces (Roosevelt, 1940).6 Roosevelt later amended this executive order to include each additional country invaded by Germany, leading to an asset freeze for much of the European continent by mid-1941 (Coates, 2018; Lourie, 1943). As the Axis Powers continued to escalate the burgeoning global conflict, Roosevelt declared a state of “unlimited” national emergency on May 27, 1941 (Roosevelt, 1941a), and subsequently issued Executive Order 8832 on July 26, 1941, which sought to “prevent the use of the facilities of the United States and trade between Japan and the United States, in ways harmful to national defense and American interests…” (Roosevelt, 1941b). In practice, this executive action made it difficult for Japan to use its gold reserves to purchase necessary resources, including oil, which likely contributed to the decision to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (Coates, 2018; Kennedy, 1999). In the aftermath of World War II, a new bureaucratic agency was created by the authority of the TWEA, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which was tasked with implementing and overseeing economic sanction programs (Coates, 2018). The OFAC immediately played a prominent role in American foreign policy, as economic warfare became part of a larger power-balancing strategy employed by the United States during the Cold War (Coates, 2018). During the Korean War, United Nations forces, under the command of US General Douglas MacArthur, decided to traverse the 38th parallel and invade North Korea (Stewart, 2003). This move prompted an intervention by the People’s Republic of China, which crossed the Yalu River to assist North Korean forces (Stewart, 2003). Operating under the auspices of containing communism, President Truman declared a national emergency on December 16, 1950, noting that, “recent events in Korea and elsewhere constitute a grave threat to the peace of the world and imperil the
6 President Roosevelt considered invoking the TWEA in December 1937 as a response
to the bombing of the USS Panay near Nanking, which resulted in 11 personnel wounded and 3 individuals killed (History.Com, 2019). Although this policy option was ultimately rejected, the justification for economic coercion through the TWEA would serve as the basis for Executive Order 8389 and subsequent related executive orders (Coates, 2018; Roosevelt, 1940).
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efforts of this country and those of the United Nations to prevent aggression and armed conflict” (Truman, 1950). With a national emergency in effect, the OFAC oversaw large-scale sanctions against North Korea and China, as well as additional sanction programs against Cuba, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the upcoming years (Casey et al., 2020). While economic sanctions largely failed to achieve their declared goals, specifically the displacement of communist governments, the scope and scale of these policies were used as part of larger political negotiations with American adversaries (Coates, 2018; Hufbauer et al., 2009). National Emergencies Act of 1976 By the early 1970s, the combination of domestic social unrest and disenchantment with American policies abroad resulted in a substantive challenge to presidential powers (Coates, 2018; Ouyang & Morgan, 2019). Specifically, growing dissatisfaction with the purpose and prosecution of the Vietnam War and the consequences of the Watergate scandal resulted in public perception of the executive branch dropping to historic lows (Ouyang & Morgan, 2019).7 In response to these changing circumstances, Congress sought to reassert itself and check presidential authority through laws that “established new oversight for intelligence operations, expanded public access to executive documents, put limits on campaign financing, and defended legislative control of the budgeting process” (Coates, 2018, p. 167). This period of change was exemplified by Congress overriding President Nixon’s veto to pass the War Powers Resolution of 1973 which sought to reign in the chief executive’s ability to use military force without legislative support (Coates, 2018). Concurrently, the Senate formed a special committee in January 1973 tasked with investigating the implications of various emergency powers granted to the president by Congress during the previous fifty years (Coates, 2018; Senate Historical Office, 2021). Co-chaired by Senators Charles Mathias (R-ID) and Frank Church (D-MD), the Senate Special Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers produced several studies detailing the nature and scope of the executive’s emergency powers (Senate Historical Office, 2021). Among its findings, 7 According to Gallup polling, individuals who trusted the executive branch a “fair amount” or “a great deal” fell from 73 percent in May 1972 to 40 percent in April 1974 (Gallup, 2022).
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the committee (1) identified 470 provisions of the federal law that delegated considerable authority to the executive during a national emergency and (2) found that there was no process in place to terminate a national emergency, once declared (Casey et al., 2020; Ouyang & Morgan, 2019). Most notably, the committee found that four national emergencies issued in 1933, 1950, 1970,8 and 19719 remained in effect simultaneously, each of which granted extensive powers to the president (Halchin, 2021; Senate Historical Office, 2021). Reflecting on these findings, Senator Church (1977, p. 198) stated that “[t]hese hundreds of statutes clothe the President with virtually unlimited powers with which he can affect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing ways. This vast range of powers, taken together, confers enough authority on the President to rule the country without reference to normal constitutional processes.” The findings of the special committee ultimately resulted in the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which sought to curb the expansion of presidential power and to allow Congress to check the use of emergency powers outside of congressional review (Coates, 2018; Ouyang & Morgan, 2019). In terms of declaring a national emergency, the NEA notes that “no powers or authorities made available by statute for use in the event of an emergency shall be exercised unless and until the President specifies the provisions of law under which he proposes that he or other officers will act” (National Emergencies Act of, 1976). The NEA also mandates that Congress meet within six months of an emergency being declared, and if necessary, reject and terminate the declaration through a joint resolution (Ouyang & Morgan, 2019). Moreover, the NEA establishes a sunset provision by which any national emergency ends upon the anniversary of the date of declaration unless the president transmits a notice to Congress stating the rationale for its continuation (Ouyang & Morgan, 2019). Nevertheless, the legislation did not detail what constituted a national emergency, leaving the term up to the interpretation 8 President Nixon declared a national emergency on March 23, 1970, in response to the United States Postal Service strike through Proclamation 3972 (Nixon, 1970). 9 President Nixon used section 5(b) of the TWEA to justify ending the convertibility
of the US dollar to gold and to impose a 10% supplement duty on imported goods on August 15, 1971, through Proclamation 4074 (Casey et al., 2020; Nixon, 1971). While the presidential proclamation did not reference the TWEA explicitly, it was cited as the authority underlying these policies in United States v. Yoshida International, Inc. (1974) (Casey et al., 2020).
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and discretion of the president (Ouyang & Morgan, 2019). Moreover, the NEA failed to outline a clear delegation of power to the executive, and instead simply required the president to identify the other provisions of federal laws upon which their actions would rest (Ouyang & Morgan, 2019). As a result, though the NEA did restrict the president’s ability to exercise emergency powers to a degree, it reflected more of an attempt to establish clear procedures for declaring, extending, and terminating national emergencies than any real limitations on the executive’s emergency powers (Ouyang & Morgan, 2019). International Emergency Economic Powers Act Although the National Emergencies Act of 1976 was intended to become the standard for presidential use of emergency powers, President Ford fought to retain the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 as well (Coates, 2018). The Ford Administration argued that the loss of the TWEA, specifically section 5(b), would force the termination of sanction programs against Cambodia, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam, which were deemed vital to the overarching Cold War strategy of the time (Coates, 2018).10 Recognizing this shortcoming in the NEA, Representative Jonathan Bingham (D-NY) introduced the Economic War Powers Act in January 1977, which would amend the TWEA by requiring the president to consult with Congress before using economic sanctions on any country and would automatically end any sanctions program after sixty days in the absence of a concurrent resolution to authorize its continuation (Coates, 2018; H.R. 2382, 95 Congress). Rather than accept these terms outright, the Carter Administration offered a compromise solution, where the president would declare a new state of emergency on a case-bycase basis and would inform both Congress and the public of this action (Coates, 2018). This counterproposal was the basis for the amended Trading with the Enemy Act that was signed into law on December 28,
10 Section 5(b) was also used to justify continued asset freezes against Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Lithuania for their “illegal expropriation of private property” at the end of World War II (Coates, 2018, p. 168).
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1977, which limited the application of the TWEA to wartime (Coates, 2018).11 On the same day the amended TWEA became law, President Carter also signed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which sought to restrain executive authority by mandating that the president consult with Congress before declaring a national emergency and by limiting presidential powers to those enumerated in the current emergency declaration (Casey et al., 2020; Coates, 2018; Giraudo, 1986). Additionally, if a president was to declare a national emergency and invoke the IEEPA, he would need to immediately report this decision to Congress with an explanation of circumstances requiring emergency action, the measures to be taken in response to these circumstances, and the foreign entities to which the declaration would apply (Casey et al., 2020). Moreover, an emergency declaration invoking the IEEPA would require a notice of continuation to be transmitted to Congress and published in the Federal Register before the anniversary of the initial declaration or it would be terminated automatically (Casey et al., 2020). Despite the intent of this legislation, most of these limits to executive power were wiped away by a series of legal challenges during the 1980s. Specifically, Dames and Moore v. Regan (1981) granted the executive branch latitude to dispose of seized property, INS v. Chadha (1983) declared that Congress’s ability to invalidate a proclamation of national emergency to be unconstitutional, and Regan v. Wald (1984) upheld the Reagan Administration’s decision to expand Cuban sanctions based on the Trading with the Enemy Act. Ironically, by formalizing the process of declaring national emergencies through the NEA and using economic sanctions through the IEEPA, Congress may have inadvertently encouraged unilateral actions by the executive. In fact, since 1979, there have been seventy-six national emergencies declared by the authority of the NEA, with all but seven invoking the IEEPA (Waldman, 2023). Moreover, the scope of what constitutes a national emergency has expanded, with emergencies being declared in the name of mitigating the proliferation of weapons of mass
11 The amended Trading with the Enemies Act incorporated existing sanction programs, which allowed them to remain intact, but now required annual notifications to Congress and the public (Coates, 2018).
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destruction,12 combatting international terrorism,13 stemming transnational crime organizations,14 and protecting human rights15 (Casey et al., 2020). Taken together, declarations of national emergencies have helped foster a burgeoning system of economic sanctions that underpin much of contemporary American foreign policy, despite the mixed record of economic coercion to induce substantive policy change (Coates, 2018; Drezner, 2003; Drury, 2001; Morgan et al., 2023; Pape, 1997).
Conclusion In this chapter, we discussed key developments in the use of emergency powers by presidents since the World War I. Specifically, we highlighted the National Emergencies Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which institutionalized procedures for the chief executive to authorize national emergency policies and implement economic sanctions toward designated targets, respectively. When presidents choose to craft foreign policy through emergency powers, they must also take sole ownership of these actions. Therefore, the president must be cognizant of political and economic factors when sharing the rationale and merits of a national emergency with the larger public. In Chapter 3, we consider how domestic circumstances can influence presidential decisionmaking and examine how these factors influence rhetoric used by the president to frame and communicate national emergency policies.
12 Executive Order 12938 was issued by President Clinton on November 14, 1994,
to discourage the development and international transport of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons (Clinton, 1994). 13 Executive Order 13224 was issued by President Bush on September 23, 2001, to freeze the assets and transactions of individuals and entities threatening, committing, or supporting terrorism (Bush, 2001). 14 Executive Order 13581 was issued by President Obama on July 24, 2011, in response to the growing influence of criminal groups that “… are increasingly entrenched in the operations of foreign governments and the international financial system…” (Obama, 2011). 15 Executive Order 13818 was issued by President Trump on December 20, 2017, to address instances of corruption and human rights abuses that undermined economic activities and democratic institutions (Trump, 2017).
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References Biden, J. R. (2021, December 15). Executive Order 14059—Imposing Sanctions on Foreign Persons Involved in the Global Illicit Drug Trade. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executiveorder-14059-imposing-sanctions-foreign-persons-involvedthe-global-illicitdrug Bucklin, S. J. (2001). To Preserve These Rights: The Constitution and National Emergencies. South Dakota Law Review, 47 (1), 85–98. Bush, G. W. (2001, September 23). Executive Order 13224—Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order13224-blocking-property-and-prohibiting-transactions-with-persons-who Calabresi, S. G., & Yoo, C. S. (2008). The Unitary Executive: Presidential Power from Washington to Bush. Yale University Press. Casey, C. A., Fergusson, I. F., Rennack, D. E., & Elsea, J. K. (2020). The International Emergency Economic Powers Act: Origins, Evolution, and Use. https:/ /crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45618/6 Church, F. (1977). Ending Emergency Government. American Bar Association Journal, 63(2), 197–199. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20744252 Clinton, W. J. (1994, November 14). Executive Order 12938—Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The American Presidency Project. https:/ /www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-12938-proliferationweapons-mass-destruction Coates, B. A. (2018). The Secret Life of Statutes: A Century of the Trading with the Enemy Act. Modern American History, 1(2), 151–172. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/mah.2018.12 Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654. (1981). Drezner, D. W. (2003). The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion. International Organization, 57 (3), 643–659. https://doi.org/10.1017/s00208183 03573052 Drury, A. C. (2001). Sanctions as Coercive Diplomacy: The U.S. President’s Decision to Initiate Economic Sanctions. Political Research Quarterly, 54(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290105400301 Edelson, C. (2013). Emergency Presidential Power: From the Drafting of the Constitution to the War on Terror. The University of Wisconsin Press. Emergency Banking Relief Act, Pub. L. No. 73-1, 48 Stat. 1. (1933). https:// catalog.archives.gov/id/299829 Fisch, W. B. (1990). Emergency in the Constitutional Law of the United States. The American Journal of Comparative Law, 38, 389–420. https://doi.org/ 10.2307/840550
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Fisher, L. (2010). Abraham Lincoln: Preserving the Union and the Constitution. Albany Government Law Review, 3, 503–532. Fuller, G. E. (1979). The National Emergency Dilemma: Balancing the Executive’s Crisis Powers with the Need for Accountability. Southern California Law Review, 52(5), 1453–1512. Gallup. (2022). Trust in Government. The Gallup Organization. https://news. gallup.com/poll/5392/trustgovernment.aspx Giraudo, J. P. (1986). Waging Economic Warfare: The Sanctions Power Under the Constitution. New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, 19(4), 935–957. Halchin, L. E. (2021). National Emergency Powers. https://crsreports.congress. gov/product/pdf/RL/98-505/32 History.com. (2019, July 29). USS Panay Sunk by Japanese. A&E Television Networks. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/uss-panay-sunkby-japanese House of Representatives. (1917). Congressional Record. https://www.congress. gov/bound-congressional-record/1917/07/09/house-section Hufbauer, G. C., Schott, J. J., Elliot, K. A., & Oegg, B. (2009). Economic Sanctions Reconsidered (3rd ed.). Peterson Institute for International Economics. INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919. (1983). Kennedy, D. M. (1999). Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. Oxford University Press. Krom, C. L., & Krom, S. (2013). The Whiskey Tax of 1791 and the Consequent Insurrection: “A Wicked and Happy Tumult.” The Accounting Historians Journal, 40(2), 91–113. https://doi.org/10.2308/0148-4184.40.2.91 Lourie, S. A. (1943). The Trading with the Enemy Act. Michigan Law Review, 42(2), 205–234. Morgan, T. C., Syropoulos, C., & Yotov, Y. V. (2023). Economic Sanctions: Evolution, Consequences, and Challenges. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 37 (1). https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.37.1.3 National Emergencies Act of 1976, Pub. L. No. 94–412, 90 Stat. 1255. (1976). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-90/pdf/ STATUTE-90-Pg1255.pdf Nixon, R. (1970, March 23). Proclamation 3972—Work Stoppages in the Postal Service. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ documents/proclamation-3972-work-stoppages-the-postal-service Nixon, R. (1971, August 15). Proclamation 4074—Imposition of Supplemental Duty for Balance of Payments Purposes. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-4074-imposi tion-supplemental-duty-for-balance-payments-purposes#:~:text=I%20hereby% 20declare%20a%20national,position%20of%20the%20United%20States
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Obama, B. H. (2011, July 24). Executive Order 13581—Blocking Property of Transnational Criminal Organizations. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order13581-blocking-property-transnational-criminal-organizations Ouyang, Y., & Morgan, M. A. (2019). The Contemporary Presidency: How Presidents Utilize Their Emergency Powers. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 49(3), 718–732. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12588 Pape, R. A. (1997). Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work. International Security, 22(2). https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.22.2.90 Posner, E. A., & Vermeule, A. (2003). Accommodating Emergencies. Stanford Law Review, 56(3), 604–644. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11cw3pz.6 Regan v. Wald, 468 U.S. 222. (1984). Relyea, H. C. (1976). Declaring and Terminating a State of National Emergency. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 6(4), 36–42. https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 20556861 Roosevelt, F. D. (1933, March 4). Inaugural Address. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/inaugural-address-8 Roosevelt, F. D. (1939, September 8). Proclamation 2352—Proclaiming a National Emergency in Connection with the Observance, Safeguarding, and Enforcement of Neutrality and the Strengthening of the National Defense Within the Limits of Peace-Time Authorizations. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation2352-proclaiming-national-emergency-connection-with-the-observance Roosevelt, F. D. (1940, April 10). Executive Order 8389—Protecting Funds of Victims of Aggression. The American Presidency Project. Executive Order 8389 Protecting Funds of Victims of Aggression. Roosevelt, F. D. (1941a, May 27). Radio Address Announcing an Unlimited National Emergency. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presid ency.ucsb.edu/documents/radio-address-announcing-unlimited-national-eme rgency Roosevelt, F. D. (1941b, July 26). Executive Order 8832—Freezing Japanese and Chinese Assets in the United States. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-8832freezing-japanese-and-chinese-assets-the-united-states Senate Historical Office. (2021). Senate Stories—Reasserting Checks and Balances: The National Emergencies Act of 1976. United States Senate. https://www. senate.gov/artandhistory/senate-stories/reasserting-checks-and-balances.htm Stewart, R. W. (2003). The Korean War: The Chinese Intervention. United States Army Center of Military History. https://history.army.mil/brochures/kw-chi nter/chinter.htm
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Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917, Pub. L. No. 65–91, 40 Stat. 411. (1917). https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/40/ STATUTE-40-Pg411.pdf Truman, H. S. (1950, December 16). Proclamation 2914—Proclaiming the Existence of a National Emergency. The American Presidency Project. https:/ /www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-2914-proclaiming-theexistence-national-emergency Trump, D. J. (2017, December 20). Executive Order 13818—Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/docume nts/executive-order-13818-blocking-the-property-persons-involved-serioushuman-rights-abuse-or United States v. Bishop, 555 F.2d 771. (10th Cir. 1977). United States v. Yoshida International, Inc. 378 F. Supp. 1155, 73 Cust. Ct. 1. (1974). United States Department of State. (1921, August 25). Treaty Between the United States and Germany Restoring Friendly Relations, Signed at Berlin August 25, 1921. Office of the Historian. https://history.state.gov/historica ldocuments/frus1919Parisv13/ch3subch1 Waldman, M. (2023, April 10). Declared National Emergencies Under the National Emergencies Act. Brennon Center for Justice. https://www.bre nnancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/declared-national-emergenciesunder-national-emergencies-act Washington, G. (1794). Proclamation - Cessation of Violence and Obstruction of Justice in Protest of Liquor Laws in Pennsylvania. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamationcessation-violence-and-obstruction-justice-protest-liquor-laws-pennsylvania Yoo, J. (2009). Crisis and Command: The History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W Bush. Kaplan Publishing.
CHAPTER 3
Presidential Rhetoric and National Emergencies
In the aftermath of the Soviet-Afghan War, Afghanistan was plagued by widespread internecine conflict among several factions seeking to consolidate power within the state (Ghufran, 2001; Hughes, 2008; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Rubin, 1999).1 Recognizing the absence of a clear central authority, a group of Islamic clerics and students, some of which were disaffected mujahadeen, formed the Taliban movement under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar in early 1994 (Hughes, 2008; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Rubin, 1999).2 As the Taliban began conquering large swaths of territory in Afghanistan, the Clinton Administration initiated a dialogue with the group but ultimately decided against recognizing them as the legitimate government of the
1 Under an agreement among major factions, known as the Peshawar Accord, Burhanuddin Rabbani became president in June 1992, but his ability to rule was largely compromised by continued in-fighting among former mujahadeen commanders (Hughes, 2008; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Rubin, 1999). 2 Many members of the Taliban studied the Deobandi Islam in seminaries, or madrassas, located in Pakistan (Hughes, 2008; Katzman & Thomas, 2017). The madrasas not only provided a religious education that informed the Taliban’s strict interpretation of the Koran, but provided an ideological foundation for young Afghan men that had grown up in refugee camps in Pakistan and had no memory of Afghanistan before the Afghan-Soviet War (Rubin, 1999; Sullivan, 2008).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Y. Ouyang and M. A. Morgan, Talking Tough in U.S. Foreign Policy, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39493-5_3
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country (Katzman & Thomas, 2017).3 Initially, apprehensions toward the Taliban revolved around the treatment of women and girls, with feminist and humanitarian interest groups, which were viewed as critical constituencies for President Clinton and the Democrat Party, speaking out against Taliban gender policies and advocating against the Taliban’s formal recognition (Rubin, 1999). Moreover, Secretary of State Madeline Albright took a hardline approach against the Taliban stating that the United States could not recognize their authority due to their “despicable treatment of women and children” (Gedda, 1997; Rubin, 1999). While this issue remained a priority for the US, it was soon overshadowed by concerns about the Taliban’s close ties with al-Qaeda (“the base”) and its leader Osama bin Laden (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Rubin, 1999).4 Osama bin Laden had obtained refuge in Afghanistan after being expelled from his homeland of Saudi Arabia in 1991 as well as Sudan in May 1996 due, in part, to his association with al-Qaeda, which sought to support Islamist causes worldwide (Crenshaw, 2001; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Rubin, 1999; Thomas, 2022). With protection provided by the Taliban, bin Laden released an extensive fatwa in August 1996 that discussed myriad grievances related to the actions of the US and its allies and called for jihad against the United States (Tierney, 2016).5 Acknowledging the legitimate threat posed by al-Qaeda toward the security interests of the United States, the Clinton Administration sent a small delegation to Afghanistan in April 1998 in hopes of extraditing
3 By late 1996, the Taliban claimed control of more than two-thirds of Afghan territory and successfully overtook the capital city of Kabul on September 27, 1996, establishing a new political regime (Hughes, 2008; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Rubin, 1999; Sullivan, 2007). 4 Osama bin Laden had ties to Afghanistan as a participant and financier of the
mujahadeen resistance during the Soviet-Afghan War as well as a political and personal relationship with Mullah Muhammad Omar (Hughes, 2008; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Rubin, 1999). 5 This fatwa was entitled “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” and was published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a newspaper based in London (Tierney, 2016). This widely distributed religious edict was followed up by a televised interview with CNN in 1997 and an additional fatwa focused on American service members and civilians in February 1998 (Crenshaw, 2001). During this time, bin Laden and the larger al-Qaeda network were being monitored closely by US intelligence agencies, with the CIA already making strides to “disrupt” his burgeoning terrorist network (Crenshaw, 2001).
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bin Laden, but to no avail (Katzman & Thomas, 2017).6 These efforts to neutralize bin Laden and his terrorist network likely contributed to the deadly bombings of US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 8, 1998, which were later attributed to al-Qaeda (Crenshaw, 2001; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Tierney, 2016).7 In an attempt to pressure the Taliban, President Clinton declared a national emergency toward Afghanistan through Executive Order 13129 on July 4, 1999, which aimed to economically isolate the Taliban for providing safe haven to accused terrorists, with Osama bin Laden being mentioned specifically, through the imposition of broad-reaching economic sanctions (Clinton, 1999).8 Despite the imposition of comprehensive economic punishments, the Taliban continued its resistance toward extradition, which enabled bin Laden and al-Qaeda to continue activities within Afghan territory (Crenshaw, 2001). President Clinton maintained his policy position, and on June 30, 2000, issued an extension of the national emergency which included the following statement: “The Taliban continues to allow territory under its control in Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven and base of operations for Usama bin Laden and the Al-Qaida organization who have committed and threaten to continue to commit acts of violence against the United States and its nationals” (Clinton, 2000). The obvious lack of cooperation between the Clinton Administration and the Taliban, along with missed opportunities by the United States to eliminate bin Laden militarily, contributed to al-Qaeda’s ability to conduct another successful attack with the bombing of the
6 This delegation was led by then-US Ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson (Katzman & Thomas, 2017). 7 The embassy attacks resulted in the deaths of 224 individuals, 12 of which were American, as well as injuries to thousands more (Crenshaw, 2001; Tierney, 2016). The US responded to these attacks by using cruise missiles to target suspected al-Qaeda training sites in eastern Afghanistan as well as a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan (Crenshaw, 2001; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Thomas, 2022; Tierney, 2016). 8 The national emergency, and its associated sanctions, was enhanced by UN Security Council Resolution 1267 passed on October 15, 1999, which called for multilateral sanctions that restricted air travel for and froze assets of the Taliban unless bin Laden were surrendered immediately (Ghufan, 2001; Katzman & Thomas, 2017).
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US destroyer Cole in Yemen on October 12, 2000 (Crenshaw, 2001; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Thomas, 2022; Tierney, 2016).9 Tensions between the United States and Afghanistan reached their zenith on September 11, 2001, when nineteen militants associated with al-Qaeda hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and a field in rural Pennsylvania (Bergen, 2023; Thomas, 2022).10 In a national address that evening, President Bush subtly placed blame for the attacks on the Taliban when stating, “The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them” (Bush, 2001).11 Despite this thinly veiled threat, the Taliban refused to extradite bin Laden once again, pushing the Bush Administration to capitalize on unprecedented domestic support and mobilize a military response toward Afghanistan (Bergen, 2023; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Tierney, 2016).12 On September 12, 2001, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1368, which noted that the Council “expresses its readiness to take all necessary steps to respond to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 9 The United States may have had multiple chances to assassinate bin Laden, including an alleged sighting in Tarnak Farm, a training camp outside of Kandahar, by an unarmed Predator drone in the fall of 2000 (Katzman & Thomas, 2017). 10 In totality, these attacks resulted in more than 3000 deaths and became the most lethal terrorist act on American soil in US history (Bergen, 2023). 11 The decision to equate governments harboring terrorists with those who commit
terrorist acts led to a foreign policy necessitating regime change to mitigate the threat of terrorism (Katzman & Thomas, 2017). 12 The United States also sought international backing for an aggressive response to the
9/11 attacks, and on September 12, 2001, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1368, which noted that the Council “expresses its readiness to take all necessary steps to respond to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and to combat all forms of terrorism, in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations,” (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; UNSC, 2001). Despite the absence of an explicit endorsement of retaliation or a reference to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, Resolution 1368 was interpreted as blanket support for military action by the Bush Administration (Katzman & Thomas, 2017).
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2001, and to combat all forms of terrorism, in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations,” (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; UNSC, 2001).13 Then, on October 12, 2001, the North Atlantic Council, took the historic step of officially invoking Article V of the NATO treaty, which obligated alliance members to act collectively to preserve the sovereignty and security of the United States (Bergen, 2023; NATO, 2023). With support, both at home and abroad, the United States initiated Operation Enduring Freedom on October 7, 2001, which initially focused on targeted air strikes on Taliban and al-Qaeda militants but would ultimately lead to the downfall of the Taliban on December 9, 2001 (Bergen, 2023; Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Laub & Maizland, 2022).14 During the final weeks of Taliban rule, twenty-five representatives of major factions in Afghanistan met in Bonn, Germany, to negotiate terms for a transitional government in early December 2001 (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Laub & Maizland, 2022). The Bonn Agreement created a framework for new government institutions, named Hamid Karzai as the chief administrator, and was signed on December 5, 2001 (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Laub & Maizland, 2022). On June 13, 2002, a loya jirga, or “grand council,” was held to establish official positions in the transitional government, with Karzai being reaffirmed as leader and named the interim president of Afghanistan (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Laub & Maizland, 2022). The United States quickly recognized the transitional government, and on July 2, 2002, President Bush formally terminated
13 Despite the absence of an explicit endorsement of retaliation or a reference to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, Resolution 1368 was interpreted as blanket support for military action by the Bush Administration (Katzman & Thomas, 2017). 14 The US-led coalition scored a series of major military victories in November 2001, overtaking the cities of Taloqan, Bamiyan, Herat, and Jalalabad in a matter of weeks, and perhaps most importantly, Kabul on November 12, 2001 (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Laub & Maizland, 2022). After being cornered in the southeast portion of Afghanistan by coalition forces, Mullah Mohammad Omar fled from Kandahar on December 9, 2001, leaving the city under tribal rule and marking the end of the Taliban regime (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Laub & Maizland, 2022). American and Afghan forces continued efforts to root out Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters through Operation Anaconda beginning in March 2002 (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Laub & Maizland, 2022). Only on May 1, 2003, did the United States Declare and end to major combat operations in Afghanistan (Katzman & Thomas, 2017; Laub & Maizland, 2022).
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the national emergency with Afghanistan through Executive Order 13268 (Bush, 2002b; Katzman & Thomas, 2017).15 The above example not only demonstrates that presidential rhetoric is used to frame foreign policy but also that the tone of discourse can be influenced by changing circumstances. Specifically, as economic sanctions implemented through the national emergency along with military operations yielded results and domestic approval ratings remained at historically high levels, presidential rhetoric directed at Afghanistan gradually become more positive in tone. For instance, as part of his remarks at a Republican National Committee dinner on May 14, 2002, President Bush highlighted progress in Afghanistan by noting, “…We’re going to continue to work to make sure that the Al Qaida killers aren’t able to bunch up or train in other spots of the world. We’re making good progress there. We’re cutting off their money” (Bush, 2002a). With this in mind, we ask: How do domestic political and economic conditions influence the tone of presidential discourse regarding national emergency policies? To respond to this question, we apply quantitative text analysis to an original dataset of nearly 3000 documents relating to 37 national emergencies declared between 1979 and 2022. We then use Bayesian multilevel models to evaluate the influence of domestic political factors on presidential rhetoric.
Measuring the Tone of Presidential Rhetoric In this section, we detail our procedure for measuring the tone of presidential rhetoric used to discuss national emergency policies. We begin by outlining our data collection process and the national emergencies in the dataset. Data Collection and National Emergencies We collect all documents relating to targets of national emergencies declared under the authority of the National Emergencies Act of 1976 15 While the national emergency had been terminated, the United States and its allies maintained a military presence in Afghanistan until the withdrawal of troops on August 31, 2021 (Laub & Maizland, 2022). After the withdrawal, the Taliban quickly reestablished control over Afghanistan and reinstated most of the policies that were in place prior to Operation Enduring Freedom (Maizland, 2023). In response, the Biden Administration once again declared a national emergency toward Afghanistan on February 11, 2022, through Executive Order 14064 (Biden, 2022).
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from the American Presidency Project.16 To minimize false positives with the document collection, we narrow the search to the name of the target along with one of the following: “national emergency” OR “National emergency” OR “sanction” or “Sanctions.”17 For example, to identify documents related to Iran, we search using “Iran” AND “national emergency” OR “National emergency” OR “Sanctions” OR “sanctions.” To account for national emergencies that have concluded, we stop document collection on January 1st of the year after the year of termination. For example, a national emergency targeting Nicaragua was implemented from 1985 through 1990, so we included documents relating to Nicaragua from January 1, 1985, through January 1, 1991. Table 3.1 presents the list of the 37 targets of national emergencies in our dataset, as well as the number of documents collected from the American Presidency Project per national emergency episode. Originally initiated via Executive Order 12170 on November 14, 1979, under the authorities of the National Emergency Powers Act of 1976 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Iran represents the longest-lasting state of emergency in our data (Carter, 1979). This national emergency is ongoing, and our data scraping of the American Presidency Project website reveals nearly 500 documents relating to the Iranian emergency or its associated sanction programs. In contrast, the “newest” episode program in our dataset is the national emergency applied to Afghanistan via Executive Order 14064, on February 11, 2022 (Biden, 2022). Table 3.1 also reveals considerable variation in the number of documents collected by national emergency episode. For instance, the Iranian national emergency is not only the longest-lasting but also among the most active in terms of rhetoric. In the 44 years since the initiation of sanctions against Iran in 1979, our data collection search identifies a total of 487 presidential documents which made references to the national emergency or sanctions applied against Iran, for an average annual rate of 11.06 documents per year. It is not surprising that the Iranian case 16 This data only includes instances when a specific target is identified by the national emergency declaration. Cases in which the target is ambiguous, such as the emergency against the proliferation of WMD, are excluded. For a complete list of declared national emergencies, see Waldman (2023). 17 Of the 76 national emergencies declared between 1979 and 2022, all but seven included economic sanctions under the authority of the IEEPA (Waldman, 2023).
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Table 3.1 List of sanction programs (1979–present) Country
Sanction begins
Sanction ends
# of documents
Iran Nicaragua South Africa Libya Panama Iraq Haiti Serbia and Montenegro Angola Burma Sudan Afghanistan Sierra Leone Western Balkans Zimbabwe Syria Liberia Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) Belarus Democratic Republic of Congo Lebanon North Korea Somalia Libya2 Yemen Ukraine South Sudan Central African Republic Venezuela Burundi Nicaragua2 Mali China Burma Ethiopia Afghanistan Russia
1979 1985 1985 1986 1988 1990 1991 1992 1993 1997 1997 1999 2001 2001 2003 2004 2004 2006 2006 2006 2007 2008 2010 2011 2012 2014 2014 2014 2015 2015 2018 2019 2020 2021 2021 2022 2000
Ongoing 1990 1991 2004 1990 Ongoing 1994 2003 2003 2016 Ongoing 2002 2004 Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing 2015 2016 Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing 2021 Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing Ongoing 2013
487 28 15 98 16 372 36 67 46 75 82 41 18 54 52 186 35 27 54 47 75 143 41 66 60 136 27 20 65 18 23 10 115 18 14 15 255
Note This table presents the list of sanction programs in our dataset, as well as the number of text documents collected per sanction program. Though Russia appears only once in the table, it was the target of two sanction programs, the first from 2000 through 2013 and the second one began in 2014 and is ongoing
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receives such attention from US presidents. As Maloney (2008, p. 27) points out, “Iran has proven to be a surprisingly persistent dilemma for American foreign policy, and US presidents from both sides of the political spectrum have struggled to devise policies that redirect Iran and its influence in a constructive fashion.” To better understand the nature of presidential rhetoric on sanction programs, we apply sentiment analysis to the corpus of documents related to targets of national emergency policies. Sentiment Analysis and Assessing Tone of Sanction Rhetoric Applications of sentiment analysis are common in the contemporary study of the American presidency. For example, by analyzing more than 43,000 of Donald Trump’s tweets from May 2009 through November 2019, Ouyang and Waterman (2020) reveal distinct patterns relating to the timing of Trump’s tweets sent throughout a 24-hour cycle, as well as that social media users are significantly more likely to retweet more negative messages. Similarly, Yaqub (2021) uses sentiment analysis to understand the potential impact of Donald Trump’s tweets during the pandemic and finds a statistically significant relationship between the tone of Trump’s tweets and the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States.18 As it relates to economic sanctions, Afanasyev et al. (2021) find that in conjunction with the imposition or announcement of US sanctions against the Russian Federation, negative tweets by Donald Trump correlated with short-term declines in the ruble’s value. The approach of reducing a textual document down into a single “sentiment score” does translate into a loss of information since we lose much of the rich details embedded within all text documents. However, since our goal is to identify broad patterns on the impact of political conditions on presidential rhetoric, this tradeoff is worthwhile. Moreover, as Colley (2019, p. 41) notes, “In seeking to understand who a person is, we look to the language that he or she uses to find repeated patterns which communicate a speaker’s ideology or worldview.” With some exceptions, presidential communications tend to be wellscripted affairs and products of multiple rounds of reviews and approval
18 Yaqub (2021) finds that Trump’s tweets gradually shift from positive to negative sentiment during the pandemic and there is a negative correlation between the sentiment of Trump’s tweets and number of COVID-19 cases.
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within the White House.19 For instance, Meyer-Gutbrod and Woolley (2021) find that while earlier administrations and the White House press corps generally mirrors the tone of the other, the Trump administration represents a sharp break with predecessors and utilizes more negative language in response to and are more sensitive to critical language from the press. Thus, since our principal goal is to assess the impact of the tone of presidential rhetoric regarding national emergency policies, we are confident that the sentiment analysis technique we utilize maintains a balance between appropriately capturing the tone of the document and incorporating important details from the texts into the eventual sentiment scores. Measuring the Tone of Text Documents One important decision during sentiment analysis is the selection of an appropriate technique to calculate the sentiment scores of text documents. However, many common sentiment analysis algorithms utilize a simple word count method to calculate scores. Consider the following two generic sentences: (Sentence 1) “This country’s record on human rights was not very good.” and (Sentence 2) “This country’s record on human rights was not very good, but we are pleased with ongoing progress.” Due to the presence of the word “good” in Sentence 1, an overly simplified method may treat Sentence 1 as a “positive” sentence. Yet, because the words “not” and “really” negate and then amplify the word “good,” the meaning of Sentence 1 is a net negative. Consider now Sentence 2, while the first part of Sentence 2 is identical to Sentence 1, it contains an adversative conjunction that overrules the first part of the sentence. Sentence 2 then concludes with an independent clause that expresses optimism. Overall, the sentiment score of Sentence 2 should reflect both the negative tone of the first independent clause and the positive tone of the second independent clause, with slightly more weight given to the second, positive clause. In sum, we need a sentiment analysis algorithm that accounts for valence shifters in texts. Valence shifters are words that modify the meanings of surrounding words. For instance, Rinker (2019) notes that 19 As quoted in Kurtzleben (2017), Tom Rosenstiel, the Executive Director of the American Press Institute, says, “the president is normally encased in a layer of aides and protected, and we know him… at some remove.”
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a negator flips the sign of a polarized word (e.g., “I do not like it.”). An amplifier (intensifier) increases the impact of a polarized word (e.g., “I really like it.”). A de-amplifier (downtoner) reduces the impact of a polarized word (e.g., “I hardly like it.”). An adversative conjunction overrules the previous clause containing a polarized word (e.g., “I like it but it’s not worth it.”).
Because valence shifting words occur regularly in verbal and written communications, and they shift the meaning (i.e., the polarity) of the words around it, it is important to account for such words when applying sentiment analysis algorithms to textual data. To examine documents related to national emergencies via sentiment analysis, while accounting for valence shifters, we use the sentimentr package in R. For each document, we split the texts into sentences, calculate the polarity of each sentence, and then construct an average score for the text polarity of each document.20 Figure 3.1 presents the distribution of document sentiment scores. The vertical, solid reference line indicates the overall mean of the distribution, and the blue, dashed line indicates the density. Somewhat to our surprise, the overall tone of rhetoric is neutral-positive (overall mean ≈ 0.08). To be sure, the distribution shown in Fig. 3.1 reveals that rhetoric runs the gamut from very negative to very positive; however, the peak of the distribution is squarely to the right of the vertical reference line denoting the mean (i.e., more positive than the mean). Overall, Fig. 3.1 suggests that there are important variations in rhetoric, and we may gain some traction in examining the tone of the rhetoric by target and by president. Figures 3.2 and 3.3 show the distribution of document sentiment scores by national emergency target and by president, respectively. First, no target receives consistently negative or positive messaging. Instead, the nature of presidential rhetoric seems to be context specific. For instance, Côte d’Ivoire receives both some of the most negative and most positive rhetoric in our dataset. On February 5, 2008, renewing his commitment to continue the national emergency and associated sanctions against Cote d’Ivoire, George W. Bush (2008) lists the grievous acts committed by Côte d’Ivoire in strong terms: “The situation in or in relation to Côte
20 For more technical details on the exact mathematical algorithm used for each of the three approaches to measuring tweet sentiments, please see the online documentation for the sentimentr package (Version 2.9.0): https://github.com/trinker/sentimentr.
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Fig. 3.1 Distribution of document sentiment scores (Note This figure presents the distribution of document sentiment scores. The vertical, solid reference line indicates the overall mean of the distribution, and the blue, dashed line indicates the density)
d’Ivoire… has resulted in the massacre of large numbers of civilians, widespread human rights abuses, significant political violence and unrest, and attacks against international peacekeeping forces leading to fatalities.” The tone of the rhetoric directed at Côte d’Ivoire changed markedly by 2016. The accompanying press release to the executive order which terminated the national emergency and sanctions against Côte d’Ivoire is full of praises, noting “Côte d’Ivoire’s extraordinary progress” and “congratulates the people of Côte d’Ivoire for their resilience and commitment to a future of peace, democracy, and inclusive prosperity” (Obama, 2016). Moreover, the press release presents a highly optimistic outlook for Cote d’Ivoire’s future: “The United States celebrates this milestone with Côte d’Ivoire and looks forward to welcoming many more achievements as the country retakes its place as an economic engine and vibrant democracy in West Africa” (Obama, 2016).
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Fig. 3.2 Distribution of document sentiment scores (by sanction target) (Note This figure presents the distribution of document sentiment scores (by sanction target). The vertical, solid reference line indicates the overall mean of the distribution (mean ≈ 0.08), and the blue, dashed line indicates the respective density of the distributions)
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Fig. 3.3 Distribution of document sentiment scores (by president) (Note This figure presents the distribution of document sentiment scores (by president). The vertical, solid reference line indicates the overall mean of the distribution (mean ≈ 0.08), and the blue, dashed line indicates the respective density of the distributions)
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Second, the pattern of rhetoric directed at individual targets of national emergencies varies. While the rhetoric at some targets, such as Côte d’Ivoire, are spread more uniformly throughout the range of the distribution, the rhetoric sentiment scores for other targets are either distributed more normally around a target-specific mean (such as Iran, Iraq, and Ukraine) or exhibit a bimodal distribution of sorts (such as Syria and Nicaragua). To be sure, some of the targets receive more rhetorical attention than others in our dataset, so we hesitate to draw strong conclusions from a visual examination of the distribution of sentiment scores. Third, compared to the variation in rhetoric by target, the differences between presidents shown in Fig. 3.3 are not as apparent. Though the number of documents we have from each administration varies by president, the distribution of sentiment scores generally indicates that presidents are similar in that they utilize a mixture of positive and negative rhetoric when discussing national emergency policies publicly. This is consistent with political science research which suggests that while each administration brings some change compared to their predecessors; the broader pattern in US foreign policy is one of consistency and continuity (Anderson, 1981; Ashbee & Hurst, 2021; Carleton & Stohl, 1985; Rosenberg, 1986). The one exception is Biden’s rhetoric, which exhibits a sharp leptokurtic peak to the right of the overall sentiment mean (i.e., a more positive tone than the typical document). Thus far, our visual depictions of the distributions of sentiment scores illustrate important variations in the nature of presidential rhetoric toward targets of national emergencies. We can gain additional insights by plotting the changes in rhetoric over time. Figures 3.4 and 3.5 presents presidential rhetoric relating to national emergency episodes by target and by president, respectively. In both figures, dots indicate the average sentiment by month, and the lowess curves reflect the trend over time. First, we do see differences across presidential administrations. From Fig. 3.3, we find that Biden’s sanction rhetoric tends to be more positive. Figure 3.5 reveals that this reflects the Biden administration’s tendency to be positive when discussing national emergency policies, at least at the monthly aggregate level. In fact, presidential rhetoric tends to be stable around an administration-specific mean. The main exception to this is Obama’s rhetoric, which displays a slight upward movement, from overall slightly negative rhetoric at the start of his administration to being slightly positive by the end.
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Fig. 3.4 Sanction rhetoric over time (by sanction target) (Note This figure presents the change in sanction rhetoric over time (by sanction target). Dots indicate average rhetoric sentiment by month, and the lowess curves reflect trend over time)
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Fig. 3.5 Sanction rhetoric over time (by president) (Note This figure presents the change in sanction rhetoric over time (by president). Dots indicate average rhetoric sentiment by month, and the lowess curves reflect trend over time)
Second, looking at the changes over time by targets in Fig. 3.4, we find that target-specific rhetoric tends to follow one of three distinct patterns. For some targets of national emergencies, such as Iran and Iraq, the tone of rhetoric is relatively stable over time. A second group of targets follows a “U-shaped” pattern, where the tone of rhetoric initially trends more negative in the first few years of the national emergency and then becomes
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more positive over time. This is especially the case for those national emergencies that are terminated, such as Côte d’Ivoire (ended in 2016), Liberia (ended in 2015), and the first set of Afghanistan sanctions (ended in 2002). Lastly, a third group, such as the national emergencies toward South Sudan and the Central African Republic, experience more negative rhetoric over time.
Explaining the Tone of Sanction Rhetoric In this section, we detail our empirical approach to modeling presidential rhetoric. In addition, we provide an overview of the variables in the model and data sources. Overall, the results of the descriptive examination of the distribution of the sentiment of presidential rhetoric and the changes over time suggest that our empirical modeling approach must account for key features in the data. Because we have text documents attributed to specific national emergencies, our data has a hierarchical structure, whereby each document represents information at Level-1 and each national emergency is a Level-2 group. Also, due to a relatively small number of Level-2 groups (37 national emergency targets) and a varying number of documents per target (from a low of 10 documents for Mali to a high of 487 documents for Iran), common large-sample estimation methods may not be suitable for our purposes (Hox & McNeish, 2020; Stegmueller, 2013). To address these issues with the data, we utilize a Bayesian multilevel modeling framework. Model Specification and Variables To explain the tone of sanction rhetoric, we fit a series of Bayesian multilevel linear regression models, allowing for varying intercepts for each sanction target. For observation i in sanction program j, Likelihood yi ∼ N or mal(μi , ρe ) μi = α0 + α j + Xβ Priors β ∼ U ni f or m(−∞, ∞)
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α ∼ Student − t (3, 0.1, 2.5) ρ ∼ Student − t + (3, 0, 2.5) where α 0 is the fixed intercept, α j is the Level-2 intercept (i.e., sanctionspecific), and Xβ indicates the explanatory variables in the model, with corresponding coefficients β. Based on existing literature, we incorporate the following groups of variables into the models: (1) President-Specific Contexts; (2) Political & Electoral Contexts; and (3) Domestic Economic Conditions. President-Specific Contexts A common starting point in the study of US foreign policy decisionmaking is to define the president as the central political actor. As Milner and Tingley (2016) argue, the president “negotiates and interacts with foreign leaders,” is the main “governmental contact with foreign governments,” and “transmits the international environment into the domestic process of policy making” (263). Compared to legislators more concerned with parochial affairs (Howell et al., 2013), “the president has a strong incentive to pursue foreign policies that are likely to advance overall national welfare and interests” (Tama, 2020). To account for presidential incentives to behave strategically, we include two president-specific context variables. The first is an indicator variable coded 1 for Democratic presidents and 0 for Republican presidents. Republican leaders tend to be more hawkish on foreign policy than their Democratic counterparts (Alley, n.d.; Bendix & Jeong, 2020), which suggests that Democratic presidents may be more apt to use more positive rhetoric in foreign policy. The second variable is presidential approval from Gallup. As Donovan et al. (2020, p. 1201) state, “presidential approval is a desirable commodity for US presidents, one that bolsters re-election chances and the prospects of legislative success.” Thus, when the president’s domestic popularity suffers, leaders may be tempted to employ means, such as stronger language in foreign policy, to boost domestic approval (Carter, 2019; Whang, 2011).
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Political & Electoral Contexts There is a voluminous literature on the importance of political and electoral contexts on foreign policy. Examining the interactions and dialogues between the European Union and the United States after the 2016 Presidential election, Blanc (2021, pp. 122–123) argues that “a high degree of uncertainty is injected in diplomatic relationships [around election time],” necessitating core actors to “seek and grant the reassurance that previously shared understandings related to their role identities will be maintained.” Moreover, electoral politics and campaign promises also serve to constrain the extent to which presidents can act once elected. Employing a case studies approach to wartime decision-making in Iraq and Vietnam, Payne (2021) shows when presidents commit to “bring the boys home” during the campaign, such electoral promises affect subsequent military decisions and strategy in office, even though the effect of electoral promises on military actions varies across over and may be inconsistent. In addition to the impact of elections on foreign policymaking, scholars also point to the importance of divided government on presidential behavior. However, the nature of its impact on foreign policy is mixed. Assessing executive-legislative clashes over economic sanctions, Tama (2020) finds that congressional opposition affects presidential foreign policy actions. For instance, presidents are less likely to express dissatisfaction with legislative sanction proposals and are more likely to sign when Congress considers the proposals when the president’s party controlled the House and/or the Senate. Moreover, a divided government also impacts presidential rhetoric on foreign policy legislation. Studying presidential statements of administration policy documents on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Wiedekind (n.d.), finds that during periods of divided political control in Congress, presidents are more assertive when voicing their objections to sections of the draft NDAAs. In contrast, other scholars find only a weak relationship between divided government and foreign policymaking. Karol (2000), for instance, shows that while co-party legislators are more likely to express greater deference to presidents from their political party on trade policy, “divided government is never the main issue. Rather, the key is the strength of protectionist forces in Congress” (841). While resolving this important debate is beyond the scope of our project, we must account for the political and electoral contexts during the implementation of national emergency policies. Thus, the second set of variables captures the political and electoral environment at the time of
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document issuance: (1) the percentage of the president’s political party in the Senate; (2) the percentage of the president’s political party in the House; and (3) an indicator variable coded 1 if it is a presidential election year and 0 otherwise. Domestic Economic Conditions Because they are inherently economic policy instruments, it is important to account for economic factors when explaining presidential decisionmaking concerning national emergency policies. For example, noting that sanction decisions have a symbolic component and presidents have incentives to impose sanctions when their approval ratings are low, Whang (2011) shows that domestic economic hardships (such as when the inflation rate rises) make sanctions initiation more likely. Focusing more directly on foreign policy rhetoric, Carter (2020, p. 186) finds that “while presidents vary considerably in their baseline propensity to direct hostile foreign policy rhetoric toward rivals, all do so more when economic conditions are poorer.” That is, based on the diversionary literature when the domestic economy worsens, presidents may employ stronger rhetoric against foreign targets in attempts to divert public attention. Thus, we include three economic indicators into our modeling approach: (1) GDP per capita, measured in constant 2015 US dollars; (2) inflation rate, measured as the monthly measure of change in sticky price consumer price index (Bils & Klenow, 2004; Bryan & Meyer, 2010); and (3) unemployment rate, measured as the monthly measure of unemployed as a percentage of the labor force. While it is common in political science literature to combine inflation and unemployment rates into a single “misery index” (see, for instance, Carter, 2020), we elect to keep the two indicators separate, given the ongoing debate in economics on the differences between inflation rate and unemployment rate and the composition of the misery index (Cohen et al., 2014; Golden et al., 1987; Welsch, 2007).
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Model Results and Discussion In Table 3.2, we present the results of five Bayesian multilevel linear regression models.21 Model 1 represents the baseline model, as it is a standard varying-intercepts multilevel model with only the fixed effects for presidential administration as covariates. Model 2 is the baseline model, plus the covariates for the president-specific contexts. Model 3 is the baseline model, plus the covariates for the political and electoral contexts. Model 4 is the baseline model, plus the indicators for domestic economic conditions. Finally, Model 5 represents our most complete model, including all covariates in a single model. Across all five models, the dependent variable in all five models is the tone of each document relating to national emergency policies. Coefficients are posterior estimates, with a 95% Bayesian credible interval shown in parentheses. We estimate all models using 4 chains and 5000 iterations, using the first 2,500 iterations as the warmup sample. Post-estimation diagnostics show all chains for all parameters have converged, with Rhat values for all parameters in the model ≈ 1.00. As Model 5 is our full model, our discussions in this section focus on Model 5. First, looking at the results shown in Table 3.2, the values of the variance ratios (equivalent to the intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC) indicate that a multilevel modeling framework is appropriate for the data. As Lorah (2018) explains, “the ICC can be interpreted as the proportion of variance in the outcome accounted for by the level 2 unit (cluster) membership” (3). In the case of the baseline model (i.e., Model 1), the variance ratio value of 0.15 indicates that 15% of the variation in the tone of rhetoric can be attributed to the target at which the rhetoric is directed. Extracting the random effects from Model 5 provides added assurance that it is important to account for target-specific variations. As Fig. 3.6 shows, compared to the intercept value of 0.30 in the fixed effects portion of Model 5, presidents direct more negative rhetoric toward 21 Though we present only the results of the Bayesian multilevel linear regression models in this chapter, we also conduct fitting the models using a variety of model specifications and modeling approaches. In addition to the Bayesian multilevel models shown, we also fit standard linear regressions with fixed effects for both presidential administrations and for targets, as well as standard, frequentist multilevel models. Results in Table 3.2 are robust to different model specifications and are substantively similar regardless of modeling framework. Thus, given Bayesian models’ capability of to better address small sample issues (Hox & McNeish, 2020), we present the Bayesian models results here.
– –
– –
– –
Domestic Economic Conditions GDP Per Capita
Inflation
–
–
–
–
–
–0.00 (–0.02, 0.02) 0.00 (–0.00, 0.00)
Model 2
–
Model 1
Results of Bayesian multilevel linear regression models
President-Specific Contexts Democratic President Presidential Approval Political & Electoral Contexts % of President’s Party (Senate) % of President’s Party (House) Election Year
Table 3.2
–
–
–0.00 (–0.00, 0.00) –0.00 (–0.00, 0.00) 0.00 (–0.00, 0.01)
–
–
Model 3
–0.00 (–0.02, 0.01) –0.00 (–0.01, 0.00)
–
–
–
–
–
Model 4
(continued)
–0.02 (–0.04, 0.00) –0.01* (–0.02, –0.00)
–0.00 (–0.00, 0.00) –0.00 (–0.00, 0.00) 0.01 (–0.00, 0.01)
–0.01 (–0.03, 0.02) 0.00 (–0.00, 0.00)
Model 5
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0.12* (0.07, 0.17) Yes 0.15 37 2851 0.17
–
Model 2
0.20* (0.12, 0.27) Yes 0.15 37 2879 0.17
–
Model 3 –0.00* (–0.01, –0.00) 0.18* (0.07, 0.29) Yes 0.16 36 2598 0.18
Model 4
–0.00* (–0.01, –0.00) 0.30* (0.17, 0.43) Yes 0.16 36 2570 0.18
Model 5
Note This table presents the results of Bayesian linear regression models. The dependent variable is document text sentiment. Coefficients are posterior estimates, with 95% Bayesian credible interval shown in parentheses. Asterisks denote coefficients where the credible intervals do not include zero. All models estimated using chains = 4, warmup = 2500, iterations = 5000, and thinning = 1. Post-estimation diagnostics show all chains for all parameters have converged, with all Rhat values ≈ 1.00. Variance ratio is equivalent to intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). It is the ratio between the draws from the posterior predictive distribution not conditioned on Level-2 groups and the draws from the posterior predictive distribution conditioned on all random effects
Presidential Fixed Effects Variance Ratio (ICC) Number of Level-2 Groups Number of Level-1 Observations R2
0.12* (0.08, 0.17) Yes 0.15 37 2937 0.17
Intercept
Model 1 –
(continued)
Unemployment
Table 3.2
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certain targets than others. For instance, the tone of rhetoric against Zimbabwe, Belarus, and Burundi is considerably more negative than the norm, whereas rhetoric against Haiti, Russia, and China is more positive at the aggregate, target level. Thus, employing the standard linear model to fit the data will lead to a violation of the independence of errors assumptions, since the tone directed toward some sanction targets is more negative than typical rhetoric, while others are more positive. Second, we find important variations in the tone of rhetoric across presidents. Because all five models in Table 3.2 include fixed effects for presidential administrations, we can extract the predictions from the models to see how the tone of rhetoric may have changed over time. Figure 3.7 presents the posterior predicted average rhetorical sentiment by president, based on the results in Model 5. We generate these predictions by holding all other covariates in the model at their respective means or modal values. There are several takeaway points from Fig. 3.7. First, compared to his successors, Carter’s rhetoric is noticeably more positive in Fig. 3.7. However, considering the small number of Carter documents in our dataset (only 19 out of 2937 belong to Carter), we hesitate to draw strong conclusions here. Next, from the Reagan administration onward and through the Biden administration (as of April 2023), there is a gradual increase in tone toward using more positive language in rhetoric addressing national emergency policies. Finally, despite repeated criticisms by political observers and academics alike for utilizing foreign policy rhetoric that breaks with traditional US norms (Edwards, 2018; Hall, 2021), Trump is not an outlier in our model results. If anything, Trump’s average sanction rhetorical sentiment is consistent with the expected trend exhibited by other presidents. Our finding is that, despite his sometimes bombastic rhetoric on both domestic and foreign policies, the general tone of Trump’s sanction rhetoric fits within the pattern in sanction rhetorical sentiment since Reagan is consistent with scholarly works which show strong continuity between Trump’s foreign policy decisions and those of Obama’s. For instance, writing during the early months of the Trump presidency, Abrams (2017) describes the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions as “surprisingly standard” and “remarkably unremarkable.” Finally, results in Model 5 reveal that only domestic economic conditions impact the tone of presidential rhetoric. None of the variables measuring president-specific nor political and electoral contexts are good
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Fig. 3.6 Varying intercepts by sanction target (Model 5) (Note This figure presents the group-level, random effects from Model 5 (varying intercepts). The vertical, dashed reference line indicates the fixed effect intercept ≈ 0.30)
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Fig. 3.7 Average sanction rhetoric sentiment by president (Model 5) (Note This figure presents the predicted average sanction rhetoric sentiment by president, generated by holding all other variables in Model 5 at their respective mean or modal values)
predictors of the tone in sanction rhetoric (i.e., the 95% Bayesian credible intervals include zero, indicating that the estimated coefficients are indistinguishable from zero). This is somewhat surprising, given some evidence in the literature that shows, for example, the importance of presidential approval on sanction decisions (Whang, 2011) and foreign policy rhetoric (Carter, 2020). In contrast, both the monthly inflation rate and the monthly unemployment rate are reliable predictors of the tone of presidential rhetoric. Figures 3.8 and 3.9 present the posterior predictions of the impact of the inflation rate and unemployment rate on the tone of presidential rhetoric, respectively, generated by holding all other variables in Model 5 at their respective mean or modal values and excluding group-level effects. In both figures, each of the 1000 thin gray lines reflects one draw from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution, i.e., the conditional expectation, E(y new | x new , y obs ). The solid, black line indicates
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the mean of the 1000 draws from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution. As shown, the predicted relationships of both inflation and unemployment, respectively, on the tone of sanction rhetoric are negative and substantively important. For example, going from the lowest level of inflation expectations to the highest level in our dataset, Model 5 predicts an overall decline in the average tone of 0.144, which is substantial considering that the bulk of average document sentiment resides between 0.01 and 0.15, with the mean of the distribution located at 0.08. While the magnitude of the impact of the unemployment rate on rhetoric is smaller
Fig. 3.8 Inflation rate and average sanction rhetoric sentiment (Model 5) (Note This figure presents the impact of inflation rate on average sanction rhetoric sentiment, generated by holding all other variables in Model 5 at their respective mean or modal values and excluding group-level effects. Each of the 1000 thin gray lines reflects one draw from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution, i.e., the conditional expectation, E(y new | x new , y obs ). The solid, black line indicates the mean of the 1000 draws from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution)
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Fig. 3.9 Unemployment rate and average sanction rhetoric sentiment (Model 5) (Note This figure presents the impact of unemployment rate on average sanction rhetoric sentiment, generated by holding all other variables in Model 5 at their respective mean or modal values and excluding group-level effects. Each of the 1000 thin gray lines reflects one draw from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution, i.e., the conditional expectation, E(y new | x new , y obs ). The solid, black line indicates the mean of the 1000 draws from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution)
than that of the inflation rate and expectations, it is important nonetheless in predicting the tone of presidential rhetoric. Most importantly, being better able to discern the likely direction of economic performance, whether via inflation rate or unemployment rate, matters to presidents. As Bryan and Meyer (2010) explain, “the stickyprice measure seems to contain a component of inflation expectations, and that component may be useful when trying to discern where inflation is heading.” In comparison, more flexible measures of inflation (i.e., less “sticky” measures) “at least on the surface, does not seem to forecast well, and it performs increasingly worse as the forecast horizon gets longer.” To the extent that presidential decision-making in sanction policies have
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a symbolic component, as Whang (2011) argues, and/or presidents may attempt to divert public attention by focusing on foreign policy during times of economic distress (Carter, 2020), then the ability to forecast economic conditions in the coming months is critical to presidential success.
Conclusion In this chapter, we examine the determinants of presidential rhetoric relating to national emergency policies. Applying sentiment analysis to more than 2900 documents relating to 37 national emergency episodes, we find important variations in the tone of rhetoric across targets and presidential administrations. While some targets of US national emergencies receive more negative rhetoric than the norm, others experience a more neutral or even slightly positive tone. Moreover, we show that the strongest predictors of presidential rhetoric are factors relating to domestic economic factors, which is consistent with recent works that show that presidents may leverage domestic conditions to behave strategically in international politics (Carter, 2020). This leads to an additional question: How does the tone of presidential rhetoric influence the substance of sanctions imposed through national emergencies? We turn to this question in the next chapter.
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Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executiveorder-13129-blocking-property-and-prohibiting-transactions-with-the-taliban Clinton, W. J. (2000, June 30). Notice—Continuation of Emergency With Respect to the Taliban. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presid ency.ucsb.edu/documents/notice-continuation-emergency-with-respect-thetaliban Colley, D. F. (2019). Of Twit-storms and Demagogues: Trump, Illusory Truths of Patriotism, and the Language of the Twittersphere. In M. Lockhart (Ed.), President Donald Trump and His Political Discourse: Ramifications of Rhetoric via Twitter (pp. 33–51). Routledge. Cohen, I. K., Ferretti, F., & McIntosh, B. (2014). Decomposing the Misery Index: A Dynamic Approach. Cogent Economics & Finance, 2(1), 1–8. Crenshaw, M. (2001). Why America? The Globalization of Civil War. Current History, 100(650), 425–432. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2001. 100.650.425 Donovan, K., Kellstedt, P. M., Key, E. M., & Lebo, M. J. (2020). Motivated Reasoning, Public Opinion, and Presidential Approval. Political Behavior, 42, 1201–1221. Edwards, J. A. (2018). Make America Great Again: Donald Trump and Redefining the U.S. Role in the World. Communication Quarterly, 66(2), 176–195. Gedda, G. (1997, November 18). Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Tells Afghan Refugees, U.S. Will Not Recognize Taliban Government Due To Its ‘Despicable’ Treatment of Women and Children. Associated Press. https://apn ews.com/article/e8e80f6adf81cf72d39b3c88737343d6 Ghufran, N. (2001). The Taliban and the Civil War Entanglement in Afghanistan. Asian Survey, 41(3), 462–487. https://doi.org/10.1525/as. 2001.41.3.462 Golden, J. M., Orescovich, R., & Ostafin, D. (1987). Optimality on the Short-Run Phillips Curve: A Misery Index Criterion. A Note. The American Economist, 31(2), 72. Halchin, E. L. (2021). National Emergency Powers. https://crsreports.congress. gov/product/pdf/RL/98-505/32 Hall, J. (2021). In Search of Enemies: Donald Trump’s Populist Foreign Policy Rhetoric. Politics, 41(1), 48–63. Hox, J., & McNeish, D. (2020). Small Samples in Multilevel Modeling. In R. van de Schoot & M. Mioˇcevi´c (Eds.), Small Sample Size Solutions: A Guide for Applied Researchers and Practitioners (pp. 215–225). Routledge. Howell, W. G., Jackman, S. P., & Rogowski, J. C. (2013). The Wartime President: Executive Influence and the Nationalizing Politics of Threat. University of Chicago Press.
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Hughes, G. (2008). The Soviet–Afghan War, 1978–1989: An Overview. Defence Studies, 8(3), 326–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/14702430802252511 Karol, D. (2000). Divided Government and U.S. Trade Policy: Much Ado About Nothing? International Organization, 54(4), 825–844. Katzman, K., & Thomas, C. (2017). Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy. www.crs.govRL30588 Kurtzleben, D. (2017). What We Learned About the Mood of Trump’s Tweets. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2017/04/30/526106612/what-we-lea rned-about-the-mood-of-trumps-tweets. Lambert, L. (2023, May 1). World Trade Center Bombing of 1993. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/World-Trade-Center-bombing-of-1993 Laub, Z., & Maizland, L. (2022, September 27). Timeline: The U.S. War in Afghanistan. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/timeline/ us-war-afghanistan Lorah, J. (2018). Effect Size Measures for Multilevel Models: Definition, Interpretation, and TIMSS Example. Large-Scale Assessments in Education, 6, 1–8. Maizland, L. (2023, January 19). The Taliban in Afghanistan. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan Maloney, S. (2008). U.S. Policy Toward Iran: Missed Opportunities and Paths Forward. The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 32(2), 25–44. Meyer-Gutbrod, J., & Woolley, J. (2021). New Conflicts in the Briefing Room: Using Sentiment Analysis to Evaluate Administration-Press Relations from Clinton through Trump. Political Communication, 38(3), 241–259. Milner, H. V., & Tingley, D. (2016). Sailing the Water’s Edge: The Domestic Politics of American Foreign Policy. Princeton University Press. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (2023, April 14). Collective Defence and Article 5. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. https://www.nato.int/cps/ en/natohq/topics_110496.htm Obama, B. (2016, September 14). Press Release—Statement by National Security Council Spokesperson Ned Price on Executive Order Termination of Emergency with Respect to the Situation in or in Relation to Cote d’Ivoire. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/press-rel ease-statement-national-security-council-spokesperson-ned-price-executiveorder Ouyang, Y., & Morgan, M. A. (2019). The contemporary presidency: How presidents utilize their emergency powers. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 49(3), 718–732. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12588 Ouyang, Y., & Waterman, R. W. (2020). Trump, Twitter, and the American Democracy: Political Communication in the Digital Age. Palgrave Macmillan. Payne, A. (2021). Bringing the Boys Back Home: Campaign Promises and US Decision-Making in Iraq and Vietnam. Politics, 41(1), 95–110.
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Rinker, T. (2019, December 24). “Sentimentr.” https://github.com/trinker/ sentimentr Rosenberg, J. P. (1986). Presidential Beliefs and Foreign Policy Decision-Making: Continuity During the Cold War Era. Political Psychology, 7 (4), 733–751. Rubin, B. R. (1989). Afghanistan: “Back to Feudalism.” Current History, 88(542), 421–446. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45316288 Rubin, B. R. (1999). Afghanistan Under the Taliban. Current History, 98(625), 79–91. http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/98/625/79/ 643489/curh.1999.98.625.79.pdf?casa_token=chT4I6LHOGQAAAAA:S51 vcpLc-WSNPs-0BsAuVwtmvuD_olpF5x4x9vKwjFjdn1efE0h9TMFnCx5PC 0wu-f6-HZs Stegmueller, D. (2013). How Many Countries for Multilevel Modeling? A Comparison of Frequentist and Bayesian Approaches. American Journal of Political Science, 57 (July), 748–761. Sullivan, D. P. (2007). Tinder, Spark, Oxygen, and Fuel: The Mysterious Rise of the Taliban. Journal of Peace Research, 44(1), 93–108. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0022343307071659 Tama, J. (2020). Forcing the President’s Hand: How the US Congress Shapes Foreign Policy through Sanctions Legislation. Foreign Policy Analysis, 16(3), 397–416. Thomas, C. (2022). Al Qaeda: Background, Current Status, and U.S. Policy. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11854 Tierney, D. (2016, August 23). The Twenty Years’ War. The Atlantic. https:// www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/twenty-years-war/496 736/ United Nations Security Council. (1999, October 15). Security Council Resolution 1267 . United Nations. http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/1267 United Nations Security Council. (2001, September 15). Security Council Resolution 1368. United Nations. http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/ 1368 Waldman, M. (2023, April 10). Declared National Emergencies Under the National Emergencies Act. Brennon Center for Justice. https://www.brenna ncenter.org/our-work/research-reports/declared-national-emergencies-und ernational-emergencies-act Welsch, H. (2007). Macroeconomics and Life Satisfaction: Revisiting the “Misery Index.” Journal of Applied Economics, 10(2), 237–251. Whang, T. (2011). Playing to the Home Crowd? Symbolic Use of Economic Sanctions in the United States. International Studies Quarterly, 55(3), 787– 801. Wiedekind, J. (n.d.). Preemptive Action: Measuring Presidential Assertiveness in Foreign Policy Lawmaking. American Politics Research. Yaqub, U. (2021). Tweeting During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Sentiment Analysis of Twitter Messages by President Trump. Digital Government: Research and Practice, 2(1), 1–7.
CHAPTER 4
Sanction Rhetoric and Sanction Activities
The 2010 Ukrainian presidential election resulted in a victory for the former prime minister and leader of the opposition party, Viktor Yanukovych (Mankoff, 2022; Ray, 2022).1 Once in power, Yanukovych rejected the pro-western stance of his predecessor and instead sought to strengthen ties with Russia by extending the Russian lease on ports in Sevastopol and by terminating a bid for Ukraine to join the NATO alliance (Mankoff, 2022; Ray, 2022). This policy agenda continued in November 2013 when Yanukovych announced that he was scrapping the European Union—Ukraine Association Agreement while increasing trade 1 During the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych faced accusations of leveraging his position as prime minister and links to the Russian government to intimidate and diminish political competition (Mankoff, 2022). Amid concerns of voting irregularities throughout the election process, Yanukovych was declared the winner of the run-off election on November 21, 2004 (Hesli, 2006; Ray, 2022). After weeks of public outcry and large-scale protests (Mankoff, 2022; Ray, 2022), the Ukrainian Supreme Court acknowledged the likelihood of substantial voter fraud and called for a revote of the run-off election on December 26, 2004 (Hesli, 2006; Ray, 2022). The new election was watched closely by domestic and international observers, and this time, Viktor Yushchenko was declared the winner by nearly an eight percent margin (Hesli, 2006). Despite losing his presidential bid, Yanukovych continued to serve in the Ukrainian parliament and became prime minister once again in 2006 as part of a short-lived unity government with Yushchenko (Ray, 2022).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Y. Ouyang and M. A. Morgan, Talking Tough in U.S. Foreign Policy, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39493-5_4
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ties with Russia and expanding the Eurasian Economic Union (Mankoff, 2022; Ray, 2022). These controversial decisions triggered widespread public unrest that culminated in hundreds of thousands of demonstrators establishing a protest camp in Kyiv’s Independence Square, later referred to as the Maidan Protests (Mankoff, 2022; Ray, 2022).2 The Ukrainian government responded to demonstrators with draconian measures that included police raiding protester camps in December 2013 and the implementation of harsh anti-protest laws in January 2014 (Mankoff, 2022; Ray, 2022). The conflict between the government and protesters peaked in February 2014 when security forces opened fire on protesters, leading to scores of casualties (Ray, 2022).3 This reckless demonstration of force marked the end of Yanukovych’s hold on power, as he hastily signed an agreement for the formation of a unity government on February 21, 2014, before fleeing the country to avoid impeachment and potential criminal charges (Mankoff, 2022; Ray, 2022). Amid the confusion created by the sudden departure of Yanukovych, protesters gathered in the port city of Sevastopol as well as outside of the regional administrative buildings in Simferopol, with pro-Russian demonstrators calling for Crimea to secede from Ukraine (Bebler, 2015; Mankoff, 2022). On February 27, 2014, unidentified uniformed militants began to occupy portions of the autonomous republic of Crimea, and with the eventual support of Russian troops, expanded control over most of the peninsula in subsequent days (Bebler, 2015; Mankoff, 2022; Ray, 2022).4 As part of this takeover, Russian security personnel restricted travel in and out of the region while also censoring Ukrainian mass media that would likely conflict with information from Russian media platforms (Bebler, 2015).5 By the beginning of March 2014, President
2 The Russian government claimed that because United States officials provided public statements of support, and in some cases, joined demonstrations, that the Maidan Protests were part of a larger attempt to overthrow the Yanukovych regime (Mankoff, 2022). 3 From February 18–20, 2014, violent crackdowns on protestors by Ukrainian authorities resulted in an estimated 2,500 injuries and more than 100 deaths (Radio Free Europe, 2020). 4 President Vladimir Putin initially denied that militants were Russian personnel but would later acknowledge that the soldiers were Russian Special Forces (Ray, 2022). 5 Russia unleashed a large-scale media campaign in Crimea that painted interim Ukrainian officials as “fascists” and “neo-Nazis” that were a direct threat to ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking citizens in the region (Bebler, 2015, p. 42).
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Vladimir Putin received support from the Russian legislature to use military force to protect Russian interests in Ukraine, paving the way for de facto control of Crimea (Ray, 2022). Then, on March 6, 2014, Crimea’s self-appointed, pro-Russian parliament voted to hold a regional referendum on March 16, which would allow citizens to vote on secession from Ukraine (Ray, 2022). With nearly 82% of registered voters participating, more than 96% voted in favor of the referendum, and Crimea was incorporated into the Russian Federation on March 18, 2014 (Bebler, 2015; Ray, 2022).6 As a response to the annexation of Crimea, President Obama declared a national emergency through Executive Order 13660 on March 6, 2014 (Obama, 2014a). This lengthy executive order placed numerous restrictions on US-Russian relations ranging from economic interactions to immigration (Obama, 2014a). Although the Russian Federation had not targeted the United States or its allies directly with its actions, President Obama justified the national emergency declaration as a necessary response to threats against “…democratic processes and institutions of Ukraine” (Obama, 2014a). By framing Russian actions as a challenge to democracy broadly, this declaration set the foundation for additional multilateral sanctions later imposed by the United States and the European Union (Bebler, 2015; Mankoff, 2022).7 This national emergency declaration would also be used as the basis for expanded punitive measures toward the Russian Federation, which intensified in the lead-up to and aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian Forces in February 2022.8 Recognizing that these sanctions failed to discourage Russia from invading Ukrainian territory, the Biden Administration has since justified
6 The Ukrainian government, along with several European Union and NATO member states, refused to recognize the legality or the outcome of the referendum (Bebler, 2015). 7 The Russian Federation responded to economic coercion with countersanctions that were so costly that many sender states did not enforce sanctions fully or retracted sanctions altogether (Morgan et al., 2023). 8 The scope of the national emergency declaration regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict was expanded by executive order 13661 on March 16, 2014 (Obama, 2014b), executive order 13662 on March 20, 2014 (Obama, 2014c), executive order 13685 on December 19, 2014 (Obama, 2014d), executive order 14024 on April 15, 2021 (Biden, 2021a), executive order 14065 (Biden, 2022a) and executive order 14066 on March 8, 2022 (Biden, 2022b). Additional actions authorized by executive order 14024 were outlined in executive orders 14039 (Biden, 2021b), 14068 (Biden, 2022c), and 14071 (Biden, 2022d).
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this policy as a means to punish Russia for its aggressive actions, to provide indirect support for Ukraine, and to pressure Russia to end the conflict (Morgan et al., 2023). Russian interference in Ukrainian politics resulted in a notable shift in the tone of presidential rhetoric, which signaled a subsequent change in US foreign policy in the region. For example, on September 20, 2018, President Trump expanded previously implemented national emergencies toward the Russian Federation through Executive Order 13849, which spelled out comprehensive economic sanctions toward individuals and entities found to be contributing to strife in Ukraine (Trump, 2018). The purpose of these extensive restrictions was described by Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, when stating: “Treasury remains committed to targeting Russian-backed entities that seek to profit from Russia’s illegal annexation and occupation of Crimea. Our sanctions are a clear reminder that efforts seeking to normalize investment and economic relationships with those operating in Crimea will not be tolerated” (Gaouette & Borak, 2018). While the relationship between rhetoric and policy appears clear, it is important to note that policy selection may be influenced considerably by outside factors, such as public opinion, but that these pressures tend to fade away during the implementation of policy (Knecht, 2011; McLean & Whang, 2014). Recognizing the potential disconnect with how a policy is communicated versus how it is put into practice we ask: How does the tone of presidential rhetoric influence the scope of sanctions imposed through national emergencies? To better understand the relationship between rhetoric and sanction activities, we analyze a dataset of individuals and entities sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control under the authority of the NEA and IEEPA from 1994 to 2022. Using models that include domestic and international determinants, we find that the tone of presidential rhetoric has a consistent and significant influence on the number of actors added and removed from designated sanction rolls.
Economic Sanctions and Presidential Rhetoric Much of the research on economic sanctions focuses on the strategic interaction among states in which economic coercion is used to gain leverage in a bargaining scenario. The typical conceptualization of this interaction is such that a sender state threatens or implements punitive
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economic measures toward a target state to induce policy change in the latter (Drezner, 2003; Morgan, 2015; Morgan et al., 2023). If the target concedes to the sender’s demands, then the sanctions episode ends, but if the target state resists then the sanctions are deemed ineffective (Drezner, 2003; McLean & Whang, 2014; Morgan, 2015; Morgan et al., 2023).9 Based on this model, sender states can only hope to achieve policy concessions from the target if they impose costs sufficient for a target to change its preferences on the disputed issue (Drezner, 2003; McLean & Whang, 2014). Yet, to what extent are sanction policies effective in changing the policies of the intended targets? During a presentation at Harvard University, former US Representative Doug Bereuter identified a puzzling observation: although economic sanctions served a growing role in foreign policy, most of these actions failed to achieve their desired political objectives (Bereuter, 1999).10 This notion is supported by a sizable academic literature focused on sanction effectiveness, which identifies an uptick in sanction policies despite the various costs they create and their meager track record of producing concessions by targeted actors (Morgan & Schwebach, 1997; Morgan et al., 2023; Pape, 1997; Peksen, 2016; Walentek et al., 2021).11 In light of this curious relationship, researchers have argued that sanctions may not be used exclusively to elicit policy change, but may also serve symbolic purposes, such as signaling political will or placating demands for action during times of crisis (Drury, 2001; Lindsay, 1986; McLean & Whang, 2014; Whang, 2011).12 Thus, economic sanctions can be used to galvanize public support for political leaders without the considerable costs of military action, which makes them a desirable option for policymakers (Drury, 2001; Whang, 2011). Moreover, Whang (2011, p. 790) argues that the implementation of a sanctions policy enables political leaders 9 The bargaining model as conceived by Fearon (1995) indicates that rational, unitary actors can reach a suboptimal outcome because of incomplete information, an inability to make credible commitments, or due to an issue deemed to be indivisible. 10 A senior voice in Congress on foreign relations, Bereuter was a member of Congress for twenty-six years where he served as vice chairman of the House International Relations Committee for six years. 11 Since 1950, the United States has been the most prolific user of economic sanctions (Morgan et al., 2023; Walentek et al., 2021). 12 Lindsay (1986, p. 170) argues, “when military options are not feasible or desirable and the initiator wants to respond forcefully to the target’s behavior, sanctions provide a means of ‘doing something’.”
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to publicly denounce the actions of a target state and “…can induce a domestic audience benefit even when the coercive policy fails to bring about the desired policy change in the target state.” In addition to the potentially symbolic uses of economic sanctions, the traditional bargaining framework used to conceptualize economic policies may also overlook other factors that influence the decision-making process regarding economic sanctions as well as the evaluation of policy efficacy (Morgan et al., 2023). For instance, scholars have argued that US presidents face pressure from their domestic audience to appear assertive in foreign policy and may use the threat and implementation of economic sanctions toward a belligerent actor to boost public approval of their job performance (Drury, 2001; Peterson, 2013; Whang, 2011).13 Thus, the adoption of economic sanctions may be much less about reaping tangible policy concessions from an adversary, but instead, a means to shore up support among constituencies that are critical to maintain and gain positions of political authority.14 Therefore, presidents have the incentive to publicize these acts of economic coercion, even if the likelihood of policy success is minimal (Whang, 2011). The president has a substantive role in both creating and framing economic sanction policies because the chief executive is typically viewed as the primary actor in foreign affairs, most notably in areas related to national security (Whang, 2011). In the case of sanctions enacted as part of a declared national emergency, presidents take personal ownership of these policies and rely on their rhetoric to justify them appropriately (Drury, 2001; Peterson, 2013; Whang, 2011). If a president wants to credibly signal a position of strength to constituents and/or coerce a targeted actor effectively, the national emergency and the accompanying sanctions must be presented in a way that communicates the salience of the issue at stake as well as the resolute nature of the sender. Thus, the type of language a president uses shapes how the public perceives the attitude and aptitude of the chief executive as well as the validity of
13 Recent studies have begun to investigate how special interest groups (McLean & Whang, 2014) and ideological groups (Kertzer & Brutger, 2016) influence political leaders to adopt economic sanction policies. 14 Knecht (2011) describes a model of decision making that occurs in two stages: the decision stage and the implementation stage. This model suggests that public opinion would be most influential during the policy decision stage but would not be a key factor in the implementation stage (Knecht, 2011; McLean & Whang, 2014).
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the policy (Druckman & Holmes, 2004; Whitford & Yates, 2003; Wood, 2009; Wood et al., 2005). To the extent that presidents have incentives to speak strategically and to leverage sanction policies for political gains, it is important to assess the impact, if any, of the tone of presidential rhetoric on sanction activities.
Explaining the Level of Economic Sanction Activities In this section, we provide an overview of the data and methods used in the analysis. We begin by describing the dependent variables: the total number of individuals and entities added and removed, respectively, from US sanction programs. Scope of Sanction Activities To measure the scope of economic sanctions implemented by the United States, we focus on the number of actors added and removed from the sanction programs maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Department of the Treasury.15 Because we are interested in the relationship between presidential rhetoric and economic sanctions, we limit the data to only those sanctions programs that have been authorized by the NEA and IEEPA.16 The dependent variables used in the analyses in this chapter are (1) the total number of individuals and organizations added to a sanction program annually and (2) the total number of individuals and organizations removed from a sanction program annually.17 We collect annual counts of individuals and entities added to and removed from sanction programs associated with national emergency 15 The OFAC’s legal authority to implement sanctions derives from a combination of congressional legislation and presidential executive orders. As Early and Preble (2020, p. 237) describe, the OFAC “has been used aggressively by US presidents to achieve their administrations’ foreign policy goals” and “has been responsible for administering and enforcing US sanctions programs in individuals and entities.” 16 See Table 3.1 in Chapter 3 for the list of the states targeted by national emergencies and associated economic sanctions. 17 While both the total numbers added and removed combined reflect the current number of individuals and entities under US sanctions, we decided to keep the two variables separate, because our interest is in level of sanction activities and not on the total number sanctions.
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policies from the Sanctions Explorer database for the years 1994 through 2022 (Sanctions Explorer, 2023). Figures 4.1 and 4.2 present the total number of individuals and entities added and removed, respectively, to US sanctions programs annually.18 Based on the presented figures, several trends become apparent. First, while many countries are sanctioned by the United States, the level of sanction activities (i.e., the number of designated individuals and entities) varies widely among targeted states. For example, sanctions activities related to Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen are minimal, while sanctions targeting Iran and Russia are relatively high. Second, for several of the sanction programs, the level of activity is highest during the early years of implementation and near the terminus of the program. Liberia is one such case. As shown in Fig. 4.1, OFAC are most active in adding individuals and entities to the Liberia sanction program during the first two years at the start of the program and only removed names from the sanctions list during the last three years of the sanctions program. Finally, some targets of US sanctions exhibit “unique” patterns. Consider Iran and North Korea, for instance, while most sanctions program exhibit comparatively higher levels of activities at the start of the sanctions program (in terms of individuals and entities added to the sanction program), which then tapers off, sanction activities on Iran and North Korea demonstrate the opposition patterns, with levels of activities relatively low at the initiation of sanctions on Iran and North Korea, respectively, which then increased in various points throughout the sanction episode. Model Specification and Variables To assess the relationship between the tone of presidential rhetoric and economic sanction activities, we fit a series of Bayesian multilevel zeroinflated negative binomial models. Because our dependent variable is a count (i.e., the total number added or removed from the sanction program) and is overdispersed (i.e., the variance is greater than the mean), we utilize the negative binomial version of count models. The zeroinflated component addresses the excessive zeros in the count data, which reflect the years during which no sanctions activity took place in relation 18 Due to missing data on key variables in the analyses, some of the sanction targets in the dataset from Chapter 3 are excluded from analysis in this chapter.
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Fig. 4.1 Total individuals and entities added to sanction program (by target) (Note This figure presents the total number of individuals and entities added to sanction programs over time [by target]. Dots indicate the total number added annually, and the lowess curves reflect trends over time. Due to scaling on the y-axis, one observation is not shown: Russia [2022], which had 903 total added)
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Fig. 4.2 Total individuals and entities removed from sanction program (by target) (Note This figure presents the total number of individuals and entities removed from sanction programs over time [by target]. Dots indicate the total number removed annually, and the lowess curves reflect the trend over time. Due to scaling on the y-axis, one observation is not shown: (1) Iran [2016], which had 216 total removed; (2) Iran [2018], which had 190 total removed; and (3) Sudan [2017], which had 155 total removed)
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to a target-year. We fit a series of varying-intercepts mixed effects models. For observation i in sanction program j, Likelihood ξ + (1 − ξ ) × N egati ve Binomial (0|μi , γ ) i f yi = 0 p(yi | μi , γ ) = (1 − ξ ) × N egative Binomial (yi |μi , γ ) i f yi = 0 log μi = α0 + α j + Xβ Priors ξ~ γ~ β~ α~ σ~
Beta(1, 1) Gamma(0.01, 0.01) Normal(0, 5) Student-t(3, −2.3, 2.5) Student-t + (3, 0, 2.5)
where α 0 is the fixed intercept, α j is the Level-2 intercept (i.e., sanction-specific), and Xβ indicates the explanatory variables in the model, with corresponding coefficients β. Our primary explanatory variable of US sanctions activities is the tone of presidential rhetoric on national emergencies and sanctions aggregated into a yearly average, for better merging with covariates data which is measured at the annual level. In our earlier works, we find that presidents are strategic in communicating their decisions to initiate and continue national emergencies. “Specifically, presidents communicate political messages not only through the initial executive action, but also through the decision and justification to continue a declared state of emergency” (Ouyang & Morgan, 2019a, p. 730). The goal of the analyses in this chapter is to examine whether presidential rhetoric represents empty political posturing, with little to no impact on actual policies or signals forthcoming sanction activity. Either possibility has important implications for understanding how presidents utilize sanctions in US foreign policy and for understanding the general nature of sanctions more broadly. Carter (2020) refers to foreign policy rhetoric as “diversionary cheap talk,” used when presidents seek to build popular support. Specifically, she finds that “when economic conditions deteriorate, Democratic presidents use hostile foreign policy rhetoric to build domestic support. By cueing national identity, they elicit an ingroup rally
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that boosts their popularity,” especially among Independent and Republican voters (Carter, 2020, p. 187). If this sanctions rhetoric is indeed “cheap” and serves mostly a domestic political purpose, foreign targets have little reason to concern with what presidents say. In contrast, some works do find connections between political rhetoric and foreign policy decisions. For example, Wichowsky and Weiss (2021) show that toughon-China campaign rhetoric is an indicator of actions on China-related legislation. If we find a similar relationship between presidential sanctions rhetoric and sanctions activities, it will indicate that such rhetoric is not “cheap” and reflects the likely intent of the administration to take sanctions actions soon. This is especially important given the works which indicate the economic impacts of US sanctions on sanction targets (Afanasyev et al., 2021). As in Chapter 3, we also include a set of (1) President-Specific Contexts; (2) Political and Electoral Contexts; and (3) Domestic Economic Conditions variables in the model. This is consistent with existing works that note the importance of covariates to denote political contexts, an election year and proximity to elections, and domestic economic conditions (Carter, 2020; Drury, 2001, 2005; Ouyang & Morgan, 2019a). Additionally, various studies demonstrate the importance of the dyadic relationship between the United States and the target state in explaining sanction decisions. Among the more significant predictors of sanction decisions is the magnitude of the dispute between the United States and the target states (Drury, 2000, 2001, 2005). As Drury (2001) points out clearly, “relations with the target are the primary driving force behind the employment of sanctions. The more heated the dispute, the greater the likelihood that sanctions will be imposed” (504). This affects both the decision to apply sanctions and in subsequent decisions to modify sanction policies.19 To assess the possible impacts of the dyadic relationship between the United States and sanction targets, we include two variables: regime difference and GDP ratio between the United States and the target. We include a measure of political regime recognizing that common institutions among states can increase their ability to cooperate and in turn 19 There appears to be a target selection bias in sanction decisions by the United States, with the United States more likely to sanction Latin American states before the end of the Cold War and less likely to target other democracies with sanctions during the post-Cold War period (Drury, 2005).
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reduce the need for economic coercion in the form of sanctions (Cox & Drury, 2006; Peksen & Peterson, 2016). To account for variation in political institutions, we calculate the difference between the annual polyarchy scores between the United States and a target state annually using Version 13 of the V-Dem Dataset (Coppedge et al., 2023a).20 Likewise, we account for the economic power of the target relative to the United States, recognizing that wealthier states are less likely to depend on the United States for trade and thus have greater wherewithal to resist economic coercion (Pekson & Peterson, 2016). We measure relative economic power as the ratio of the annual GDP of the target state and the annual United States using Gross Domestic Product figures from the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook Database (International Monetary Fund, 2022; Pekson & Peterson, 2016). The GDP ratio variable is bounded between 0 and 1, with values closer to 1 indicating greater economic parity between the US and the sanction target and values closer to 0 reflecting greater economic power difference between the dyad.
Results and Discussion In this section, we present the results of the Bayesian multilevel zeroinflated negative binomial models, shown in Table 4.1. For Models 1–3, the dependent variable is the total number of individuals and organizations added to sanction programs annually. For Models 4–6, the dependent variable is the total number of individuals and organizations removed from sanction programs annually. Coefficients are posterior estimates, with a 95% Bayesian credible interval shown in parentheses. Asterisks denote coefficients where the credible intervals do not include zero. For all models, we estimate the models using four chains and run each chain for 10,000 iterations, using the first 5000 of the iterations as warmup samples. Post-estimation diagnostics show all chains for all parameters have converged, with all Rhat values ≈ 1.00. Model 1 and 20 The V-Dem dataset has several macro categories describing political institutions, with polyarchy described as country where “… the core value of making rulers responsive to citizens, achieved through electoral competition for the electorate’s approval under circumstances when suffrage is extensive; political and civil society organizations can operate freely; elections are clean and not marred by fraud or systematic irregularities; and elections affect the composition of the chief executive of the country” (Coppedge et al., 2023b, p. 44).
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Model 4 represent our baseline models for the total number added and removed from sanction programs, respectively, and are both estimated with only the presidential fixed effects in the model. Model 2 and Model 5 then add in our primary explanatory variable: the tone of presidential rhetoric on national emergencies and their associated sanctions. Finally, Model 3 and Model 6 represent our full models and include all covariates in the model estimation. Several points are worth mentioning in Table 4.1. First, like the analysis in Chapter 3, we find that Level-2 membership matters a lot. Because the variance ratio shown in Table 4.1 is the equivalent to the intraclass correlation coefficient, we can interpret it as the proportion of the variation in the dependent variable explained by the Level-2 group membership (Lorah, 2018). Across all six models in Table 4.1, the variance ratio values are significant, ranging from a low of 0.83 in Model 3 to a high of 0.99 in Model 4. In other words, in our full model for the total number of individuals and entities added to sanctions programs annually (Model 3), the Level-2 group membership accounts for approximately 83% of the total variation in the dependent variable. In Model 4, our full model for the total number of individuals and entities removed from sanctions programs annually; the Level-2 group membership explains an even higher proportion of the variation in the outcome variable, approximately 96%. Second, we again do not find that president-specific factors like presidential approval nor political and electoral context variables like whether it is currently an election year matter in explaining the level of sanction activities. While these findings are somewhat surprising, it is also consistent with Drury (2005), who shows that presidential approval does not predict foreign policy sanction modification decisions. In fact, the only consistent predictor of the level of sanction activities (measured by the total number added and removed from sanctions) is the tone of presidential rhetoric. In both Model 2 and in Model 5, where rhetoric sentiment is the only variable in the model aside from the presidential fixed effects, we find that the tone of presidential national emergency and sanction rhetoric explains the level of economic sanction activities. Specifically, as presidential rhetoric becomes more positive, we see higher levels of sanction activities. This relationship between the tone of the rhetoric and sanction activities holds even as we introduced additional covariates in the models (Model 3 and Model 6, respectively).
–
– – –
–
– – –
– – –
–
Domestic Economic Conditions GDP Per Capita
Inflation
Unemployment
Target-Specific Contexts Regime Difference –
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
6.72* (2.70, 10.77)
–
−0.04 – (−1.87, 1.76) −0.26 – (−2.13, 1.47) −0.51* – (−0.93, −0.08)
0.65 (−0.50, 1.83) 0.29 (−0.78, 1.38) −0.29 (−1.02, 0.47)
0.77 (−5.43, 6.96) 0.01 (−0.06, 0.08)
7.72* 5.89* (3.60, 11.84) (1.27, 10.54)
President-Specific Contexts Democratic President Presidential Approval Political & Electoral Contexts % of President’s Party (Senate) % of President’s Party (House) Election Year
–
Model 4
Model 3
Model 1
Model 2
Total removed
Total added
Results of Bayesian multilevel zero-inflation negative binomial models
Rhetoric Sentiment
Table 4.1
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
14.38* (8.64, 20.05)
Model 5
(continued)
−0.72 (−6.63, 5.14)
0.40 (−1.52, 2.25) −0.79 (−3.50, 1.80) −0.62 (−1.40, 0.13)
−0.40 (−2.28, 1.44) 0.80 (−1.25, 2.84) 0.08 (−1.11, 1.33)
0.67 (−5.68, 7.13) −0.03 (−0.14, 0.09)
13.67* (6.97, 20.25)
Model 6
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(continued)
–
–
Model 6
–
–
−2.02 (−10.88, 6.88) −1.53 −3.99* 4.12 (−4.00, 1.09) (−6.30, −1.62) (−7.99, 16.46) Yes Yes Yes 0.99 0.98 0.96 26 26 25 326 326 275 0.28 0.28 0.36
Model 5
Note This table presents the results of Bayesian multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial regression models. The dependent variable is the (1) total number of individuals and organizations added to a sanction program annually (for Models 1–3) or (2) total number of individuals and organizations removed from a sanction program annually (for Models 4–6). Coefficients are posterior estimates, with 95% Bayesian credible interval shown in parentheses. Asterisks denote coefficients where the credible intervals do not include zero. All models estimated using chains = 4, warmup = 5000, iterations = 10,000, and thinning = 1. Post-estimation diagnostics show all chains for all parameters have converged, with all Rhat values ≈ 1.00. The variance ratio is equivalent to the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). It is the ratio between the draws from the posterior predictive distribution not conditioned on Level-2 groups and the draws from the posterior predictive distribution conditioned on all random effects
0.59 (−4.57, 6.84) 0.51 (−7.56, 8.69) Yes 0.83 25 275 0.50
Model 4
Model 3
Model 1
Model 2
Total removed
Total added
4.05* 3.21* (2.09, 6.01) (1.28, 5.18) Presidential Fixed Effects Yes Yes Variance Ratio (ICC) 0.96 0.92 Number of Level-2 Groups 26 26 Number of Level-1 Observations 326 326 R2 0.44 0.40
GDP Ratio (Target/US) Intercept
Table 4.1
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To display the relationship visually, Figs. 4.3 and 4.4 present the posterior predictions of the substantive impact of the tone of presidential rhetoric on the level of sanction activities (the total added in Fig. 4.3 and the total removed in Fig. 4.4). We generate by holding all other variables in Model 3 at their respective mean or modal values and excluding grouplevel effects. Each of the 1000 thin gray lines reflects one draw from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution, i.e., the conditional expectation, E(ynew | xnew , yobs ). The solid, black line indicates the mean of the 1,000 draws from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution.
Fig. 4.3 Sanction rhetoric sentiment and total added to sanction program (Model 3) (Note This figure presents the impact of sanction rhetoric sentiment on the total number of individuals and entities added to a sanction program, generated by holding all other variables in model 3 at their respective mean or modal values and excluding group-level effects. Each of the 1000 thin gray lines reflects one draw from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution, i.e., the conditional expectation, E(ynew | xnew , yobs ). The solid, black line indicates the mean of the 1000 draws from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution)
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Fig. 4.4 Sanction rhetoric sentiment and total removed from sanction program (Model 6) (Note This figure presents the impact of sanction rhetoric sentiment on the total number of individuals and entities removed from a sanction program, generated by holding all other variables in model 6 at their respective mean or modal values and excluding group-level effects. Each of the 1000 thin gray lines reflects one draw from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution, i.e., the conditional expectation, E(ynew | xnew , yobs ). The solid, black line indicates the mean of the 1000 draws from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution)
As shown in both Figs. 4.3 and 4.4, while the prediction intervals (i.e., the spread of the prediction lines vertically) are narrow on the left side of the figure, the prediction intervals broaden considerably as the tone of presidential rhetoric becomes more positive. This reflects two features in the data. More negative rhetoric tends to characterize many of the legally-required presidential notices and messages to Congress that presidents must issue when continuing the national emergency for another calendar year. Thus, these documents (and therefore corresponding sentiment scores and yearly averages) reflect very much standardized language
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that presidents use when meeting their legal obligation to continue a national emergency and to notify Congress if they decide to do so. More importantly, sanction activities tend to increase when the tone of the rhetoric becomes more positive. For example, when an emergency ends and sanctions terminate, presidential rhetoric is typically very positive about the results of the sanction program. Cote d’Ivoire is one such case. From 2006 through 2016, OFAC data shows that only 12 total individuals were under US sanctions. From the time they were added to the sanctions list, they were only removed from the list at the termination of the sanctions program. At the time, Obama’s press release on the termination of the national emergency is particularly positive in tone, noting progress made by Cote d’Ivoire and proclaiming that “the United States… looks forward to welcoming many more achievements as the country retakes its place as an economic engine and vibrant democracy in West Africa” (Obama, 2016). Another such case involves the sanctions against Sudan in 2017. On January 13, 2017, Obama issued Executive Order 13761 to recognize the positive progress made by the Government of Sudan, including “a marked reduction in offensive military activity, culminating in a pledge to maintain a cessation of hostilities in conflict areas in Sudan, and steps toward the improvement of humanitarian access throughout Sudan, as well as cooperation with the United States on addressing regional conflicts and the threat of terrorism” (Obama, 2017). Indeed, 2017 was an active year for the Sudan sanction program, with 155 removed from the sanctions list that year. Overall, the results here suggest that the tone of presidential rhetoric on national emergencies and sanctions is related to the scope of economic sanction activities. While a positive relationship between the tone of national emergencies and sanctions rhetoric and the level of sanction activities may be surprising, we think it is consistent with existing studies. In an earlier conference paper using different measures of presidential tone and methodology, we also find a positive relationship between presidential rhetoric and sanction activities (Ouyang & Morgan, 2019b). Moreover, if one important gain for presidents in sanction policies is leveraging sanction activities to boost popularity (Carter, 2020; Whang, 2011), it behooves presidents to portray policy actions in the best light possible. In other words, when applying greater economic pressures on a target, presidents should emphasize the myriad positive reasons why the US policy is the correct one. In contrast, when decreasing sanction pressures, presidents will stress instead the positive behavior and progress of
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the target in meeting demands of the United States. Thus, when presidents are more positive about economic sanctions, we should expect some activities to occur, whether it be that additional sanctions are forthcoming or that economic pressures against a target will decrease as names will be removed from the sanctions list. Finally, we find that both the state of the domestic economy and political compatibility between the United States and the target state affect the level of sanction activities. Figure 4.5 shows the posterior predictions on the impact of the unemployment rate on sanction activities. As discussed in Chapter 3, though it is common in the political science literature to combine inflation and unemployment into a single misery index to describe the state of the domestic economy, some studies include both inflation and unemployment as separate variables in the model. In the case of sanction policies, Drury (2001) finds that while the “inflation rate does not affect the decision to sanction,” “the unemployment rate does to provide the president with an incentive to sanction” (503). However, while Drury (2001) finds that economic sanction initiation becomes less likely as the unemployment rate increases, we find that as the domestic economy worsens and the unemployment rate increases; fewer individuals and entities are added to sanctions programs. The impact is substantial. All else being equal, the model predicts that when the unemployment rate is at 3%; the expected total number of individuals and entities added to sanctions programs is approximately 12.9. As the unemployment rate increases to 5%, the expected total added drops to 4.08. As it climbs further still to 8% unemployment, the model predicts that the total added is 1.04. Overall, the relationship is consistent with the notion that because economic sanctions impact both the economy of the targets as well as the domestic economy; presidents should be hesitant to apply sanctions as the US economy struggles. Political compatibility between the United States and the target state also impacts sanction activities, particularly concerning the total number added to sanctions programs. Figure 4.6 presents the posterior predictions on the relationship between regime difference, measured as the absolute difference in democracy scores between the US and sanction target, on the total number of individuals and entities added to sanctions programs. While regime difference does predict sanction activities in terms of individuals and entities added to sanctions programs, the substantive effect is modest throughout much of the range in the values of regime difference. Holding all other variables at their respective mean
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Fig. 4.5 Unemployment rate and total added to sanction program (Model 3) (Note This figure presents the impact of the unemployment rate on the total number of individuals and entities added to a sanction program, generated by holding all other variables in Model 3 at their respective mean or modal values and excluding group-level effects. Each of the 1,000 thin gray lines reflects one draw from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution, i.e., the conditional expectation, E(ynew | xnew , yobs ). The solid, black line indicates the mean of the 1000 draws from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution)
of modal values, as regime difference moves from 0 to 0.6, the model predictions change from 0.104 to 2.81. However, toward the higher values of the regime difference variable, indicating US-target dyads with greater levels of political incompatibility, the shift is more dramatic. As the difference in political regime moves from 0.6 to 0.8, the change in the predicted total number of individuals and entities added to sanctions programs is from 2.81 to 11.6. As regime difference changes from 0.8 to 1, the shift is even sharper, going from a predicted value of 11.6 to a predicted value of 56.5 individuals and entities added to US sanctions applied on a target. Overall, the results here echo those of Drury (2005)
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Fig. 4.6 Regime difference and total added to sanction program (Model 3) (Note This figure presents the impact of regime difference on the total number of individuals and entities added to a sanction program, generated by holding all other variables in model 3 at their respective mean or modal values and excluding group-level effects. Each of the 1000 thin gray lines reflects one draw from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution, i.e., the conditional expectation, E(ynew | xnew , yobs ). The solid, black line indicates the mean of the 1000 draws from the expected value of the posterior predictive distribution)
and Cox and Drury (2006), who found that the United States is less likely to apply economic sanctions to other democracies.
Conclusion In this chapter, we analyze the connections between presidential rhetoric on national emergencies and sanctions and economic sanction activities. Fitting a series of Bayesian multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial models, we find that the tone of presidential rhetoric is a consistent predictor of the level of sanction activities. Specifically, as the tone of
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rhetoric becomes more positive, our analysis shows that sanction activities rise, with increases in both the total number added and removed from a sanction program. In other words, the tone of presidential rhetoric related to national emergencies and sanctions is at least in part suggestive of forthcoming executive actions in sanction policies. In addition to the tone of the president, we also find that the state of the domestic economy and differences in political regime between the United States and the target state also predict the level of activities within a sanction program.
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CHAPTER 5
Tough Talk in US Foreign Policy
In response to continuing violence and civil unrest in Burundi, President Obama issued Executive Order 13712 on November 22, 2015, which imposed extensive economic restrictions on individuals and entities deemed to threaten the “… peace, security, and stability of Burundi…” (Obama, 2015).1 This state of emergency was subsequently continued by President Obama and President Trump with nearly identical framing and phrasing from 2016 through 2019.2 In November 2020, Trump indicated that the instability in Burundi continued to pose a significant threat to US interests abroad and once again extended the national emergency declaration, but the president’s language changed considerably, with a commendation for positive developments in Burundi, specifically the
1 Much of Burundi’s domestic strife stemmed from President Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third consecutive term, despite the constitutional limitation of two five-year terms (Niyungeko & Bilefsky, 2015). Large-scale protests, a continual exodus of refugees, and an attempted coup d’état attempt in May 2015 led by Major General Godefroid Niyoumbare, further contributed to political instability within Burundi (Niyungeko & Bilefsky, 2015). 2 The official justification for the continuation of the national emergency in Burundi can be found in presidential notices issued to fulfill statutory requirements of the National Emergencies Act (Obama, 2016; Trump, 2017, 2018, 2019).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Y. Ouyang and M. A. Morgan, Talking Tough in U.S. Foreign Policy, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39493-5_5
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formation of a new government (Trump, 2020).3 Then, on November 18, 2021, President Biden cited meaningful efforts by the Ndayishimiye regime to establish order and create political reforms to justify terminating the national emergency toward Burundi through Executive Order 14054 (Biden 2021).4 The Burundi case demonstrates several key points that have been identified and addressed in earlier portions of this book. For one, national emergencies are a unique form of executive action that provides the president with considerable latitude to shape US foreign policy through the framing of issues and the use of economic sanctions as a coercive instrument. Second, although Congress intended for the National Emergencies Act of 1976 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to reign in unilateral policymaking by the chief executive, they instead institutionalized a process where the president can declare, extend, and terminate a national emergency without the presence of clear standards or evidence to justify these decisions. Third, how presidents frame and communicate national emergency policies, as well as their accompanying sanction programs, may relate more to political and economic circumstances than to address threats and challenges to US national interests effectively. In this chapter, we provide a summary of the book’s main takeaway points and then conclude the chapter with some suggestions for future research in this area.
Overview of the Book To better understand the intersection of unilateral executive powers and contemporary American foreign policy, we investigated the relationship between presidential rhetoric and the implementation of national emergency policies. In Chapter 1, we provided a broad overview of literature related to this topic, including the unilateral presidency, presidential rhetoric, and economic sanctions. While these three areas of research
3 This change of rhetoric did not result in any changes to the number of individuals or organizations sanctioned through the national emergency policy (Sanctions Explorer, 2023). 4 Though President Trump and President Biden identified desirable political changes in Burundi, several NGOs note continued threats to the population in Burundi, including media restrictions, violence against members of perceived political opposition, and widespread food insecurity (Freedom House, 2021; Roth, 2022).
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operate in largely distinct silos, we identified an opportunity for scholarly integration by combining insights from all fields to explore how presidents talk about national emergencies and their associated sanction policies. In Chapter 2, we discussed critical developments of presidential emergency powers by highlighting the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, the National Emergency Act of 1976, and the International Emergency Economics Act of 1977. While presidents have exercised emergency powers since the nation’s founding, these specific pieces of legislation have granted the chief executive broad discretion in the initiation, continuation, and termination of national emergencies. This is ironic, considering that Congress’s original purpose, especially in the case of the National Emergencies Act, was to gain better control and to seek greater transparency over presidential exercises of emergency powers. In any case, these three statutes set the stage for the contemporary use of national emergency policies and their associated sanction policies. In Chapter 3, we assessed how presidents describe and communicate national emergency policies. Applying sentiment analysis to almost 3000 documents, we examined the positivity/negativity of the language used to describe targets of declared national emergencies and found considerable variations in the tone of presidential rhetoric used to discuss national emergencies and the associated sanctions programs. For instance, we find that some national emergency targets, such as Zimbabwe, Belarus, Cote d’Ivoire, and Sudan, received significantly more negative rhetoric than others. In addition to a descriptive assessment of presidential rhetoric on national emergency targets, results of a series of Bayesian multilevel linear regression models reveal that while president-specific and political contexts variables such as presidential approval, upcoming elections, partisan allies in Congress, and the party of the president may have theoretical importance; they are not a good predictor of national emergency rhetoric in the models. Instead, we found that domestic economic factors are among the more critical predictors of the tone of presidential rhetoric. This result is consistent with prior works that demonstrate that the inflation rate, commonly used as a metric of economic hardship, has a negative influence on a president’s public approval (Whang, 2011) and encourages harsher rhetoric regarding foreign policy (Carter, 2020). In Chapter 4, we evaluated the extent to which the tone of presidential rhetoric relates to the scope and scale of economic sanctions implemented as part of a larger national emergency policy under the
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auspices of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Department of the Treasury. Analyzing the data using Bayesian multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial regression models, we find that the tone of presidential rhetoric on national emergencies and associated sanction programs correlates with the level of economic sanction activities. Specifically, we found that as the tone of presidential rhetoric becomes more positive; there are corresponding increases in the total number of individuals and entities added to sanctions programs and in the total number of individuals and entities removed from sanctions programs. In other words, our results indicate that rhetoric is not associated with sanctions becoming more (or less) punitive against targets of national emergencies but does correlate with the level of sanction activities (in terms of numbers added and/or removed from the sanctions list annually). In addition to finding strong relations between the tone of presidential rhetoric and the level of sanction activities, our models also indicate the importance of both domestic economic conditions in the United States and the dyadic relationship between the United States and the target state on the level of sanction activities, respectively. For one, increases in the domestic unemployment rate were shown to influence the number of actors added and removed from designated sanction lists. This finding coincides with previous studies that suggest that economic actors place pressure on the government to use or terminate sanctions based on the policy’s perceived effect on both international (Kastner, 2007; McLean & Whang, 2014) and domestic economies (Neuenkirch & Neumeier, 2015; Yang et al., 2004). Moreover, our results indicated that as differences in the political institutions between the United States and its target increase; the number of actors added and removed from sanction programs grows significantly. This finding is consistent with broader arguments of a “commercial peace” as well as more narrow findings that political regime shapes how states respond to economic sanctions (Jeong & Peksen, 2019; Peksen, 2019), with democracies being more responsive to economic coercion than their more autocratic counterparts (Walentek et al., 2021). Even when controlling for these alternative explanations, our models indicate that as presidential rhetoric becomes more positive; the number of entities added and removed from sanction programs increases significantly. This finding suggests that presidents frame national emergency policies in a more positive light when activity related to sanction programs is forthcoming, but the nature of these actions (increasing or decreasing sanctioned actors) remains unclear.
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Future Directions for Research There are several potential paths forward to build on our present research. For instance, while this study focuses on traditional means of communication from the president to a wider audience, future studies may also incorporate communication through social media platforms as well. This would build on recent works related to presidential communication through social media platforms such as Twitter (Ouyang & Waterman, 2020), and such works may elucidate different rhetorical styles depending on both the medium as well as the targeted audience. One recent study shows that this area of research may be fruitful. Employing a combination of sentiment analysis and time-series analysis, Afanasyev et al. (2021) find that the tone of Donald Trump’s tweets toward Russia coincides with the announcement of US sanctions and with short-term depreciation in the value of the Russian ruble. Another direction for future research would be to better assess the role of interest groups in economic sanctions and foreign policy. Numerous studies note that interest groups and the public play an important part in US foreign policy. For example, Whang (2011) shows that “policymakers reliably benefit from sanctions because imposing sanctions increases public support” (799). Moreover, sanctions are “an efficient way of displaying ‘do something’ leadership to the public” and “can be used to placate the domestic populace,” and “elevate the popularity of incumbent leaders” (799). Lektzian and Souva (2003) describe this balancing act as one where “democratic leaders will constantly seek a policy option that can simultaneously satisfy the demand of interest groups for action while not harming their domestic business community” (645). Despite the prevalence of the roles of interest groups in theories on economic sanctions and policymaking, however, several questions remain. For instance, which interest groups are particularly susceptible to political appeals on sanction policies, and why? How much will it take to placate the public and interest group demands for foreign policy leadership, especially in the area of sanction policies? Will any action suffice, or will it necessitate one of a certain magnitude or scope? One possible method for assessing some of these questions is to employ some form of experimental research design, where we can better control the research setting and isolate causal mechanisms. Finally, future research should further disaggregate economic sanctions programs to elucidate the fine-grained substance of these policies and
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the individuals and entities under target. Because our measure of sanction activity relies on raw total numbers of individuals and organizations added and removed annually, one limitation of our analysis is that we were unable to capture the nuances of these changes. Put differently, not all individuals and organizations have the same political and social significance, so relying on counts may be overemphasizing the importance of some actors while underselling the impact of others. For example, are certain types of individuals and/or entities more likely to be the targets of US sanctions, and why? Moreover, to what extent does the targeting of specific individuals impact the overall effectiveness of the sanction policy? There is already recognition in the literature that the characteristics of the targeted individuals matter; however, scholars disagree on the scope of those impacts. For instance, Weiss (1999) emphasizes the humanitarian costs of economic sanctions and recommends that, instead of broad sanction policies, policymakers should target particular individuals by name. Drezner (2011) notes that “the evidence to date suggests that smart sanctions are no better at generating concessions from the target state. In many ways, they are worse” (104). Using formal logic, Major and McGann (2005) theorize that, to maximize sanction effectiveness, policymakers should target “innocent bystanders” who may then apply pressure on their governments to comply with US sanction policies. In sum, because the Office of Foreign Assets Control maintains records of each individual and entity under US sanctions, such as name, address, and the like, this provides an opportunity to explore the nuances of who gets sanctioned by the United States and how these targeted individual-specific characteristics may impact the overall success of the sanction program.
References Afanasyev, D. O., Fedorova, E., & Ledyaeva, S. (2021). Strength of Words: Donald Trump’s Tweets, Sanctions and Russia’s Ruble. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 184(April), 253–277. Biden, J. R. (2021, November 18). Executive Order 14054—Termination of Emergency With Respect to the Situation in Burundi. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order14054-termination-emergency-with-respect-the-situation-burundi Carter, E. B. (2020). Diversionary Cheap Talk: Economic Conditions and US Foreign Policy Rhetoric, 1945–2010. International Interactions, 46(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2020.1688319
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Drezner, D. W. (2011). Sanctions Sometimes Smart: Targeted Sanctions in Theory and Practice. International Studies Review, 13(1), 96–108. Freedom House. (2021, March 19). Freedom in the World 2021: Burundi. Freedom House. https://freedomhouse.org/country/burundi/fre edom-world/2021 Jeong, J. M., & Peksen, D. (2019). Domestic Institutional Constraints, Veto Players, and Sanction Effectiveness. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 63(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002717728105 Kastner, S. L. (2007). When Do Conflicting Political Relations Affect International Trade? Journal of Conflict Resolution, 51(4). https://doi.org/10. 1177/0022002707302804 Lektzian, D., & Souva, M. (2003). The Economic Peace Between Democracies: Economic Sanctions and Domestic Institutions. Journal of Peace Research, 40(6), 641–660. Major, S., & McGann, A. J. (2005). Caught in the Crossfire: “Innocent Bystanders” as Optimal Targets of Economic Sanctions. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 49(3), 337–359. McLean, E. V., & Whang, T. (2014). Designing Foreign Policy: Voters, Special Interest Groups, and Economic Sanctions. Journal of Peace Research, 51(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343314533811 Neuenkirch, M., & Neumeier, F. (2015). The Impact of UN and US Economic Sanctions on GDP Growth. European Journal of Political Economy, 40, 110– 125. Niyungeko, S., & Bilefsky, D. (2015, May 15). Burundi Government Says It Has Crushed Coup Attempt. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/ 2015/05/16/world/africa/burundi-attempted-coup.html Obama, B. (2015, November 22). Executive Order 13712—Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Burundi. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executiveorder-13712-blocking-property-certain-persons-contributing-the-situationburundi Obama, B. (2016, November 9). Notice—Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Burundi. The American Presidency Project. https:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/notice-continuation-the-national-eme rgency-with-respect-burundi Ouyang, Y., & Waterman, R. W. (2020). Trump, Twitter, and the American Democracy: Political Communication in the Digital Age. Palgrave Macmillan. Peksen, D. (2019). When Do Imposed Economic Sanctions Work? A Critical Review of the Sanctions Effectiveness Literature. Defence and Peace Economics, 30(6). https://doi.org/10.1080/10242694.2019.1625250
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Roth, K. (2022, January 13). Burundi: Events of 2021. Human Rights Watch World Report 2022. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-cha pters/burundi Sanctions Explorer. (2023). Sanctions Explorer Analytics. C4ADS. https://sancti onsexplorer.org/analytics Trump, D. J. (2017, November 6). Notice—Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Burundi. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/notice-continuation-the-nat ional-emergency-with-respect-burundi-0 Trump, D. J. (2018, November 16). Notice—Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Burundi. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/notice-contin uation-the-national-emergency-with-respect-burundi-1 Trump, D. J. (2019, November 19). Notice—Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Burundi. The American Presidency. https:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/notice-continuation-the-national-eme rgency-with-respect-burundi-2 Trump, D. J. (2020, November 12). Notice—Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Burundi. The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/notice-contin uation-the-national-emergency-with-respect-burundi-3 Waldman, M. (2023). Declared National Emergencies Under the National Emergencies Act. Brennon Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter. org/our-work/research-reports/declared-national-emergencies-under-nation alemergencies-act Walentek, D., Broere, J., Cinelli, M., Dekker, M. M., & Haslbeck, J. M. B. (2021). Success of Economic Sanctions Threats: Coercion, Information and Commitment. International Interactions, 47 (3). https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03050629.2021.1860034 Weiss, T. G. (1999). Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool: Weighting Humanitarian Impulses. Journal of Peace Research, 36(5), 499–509. Whang, T. (2011). Playing to the Home Crowd? Symbolic Use of Economic Sanctions in the United States. International Studies Quarterly, 55(3). https:/ /doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2011.00668.x Yang, J., Askari, H., Forrer, J., & Teegen, H. (2004). U.S. Economic Sanctions: An Empirical Study. International Trade Journal, 18(1), 23–62.
Index
A Afghanistan, 33–40, 50 Albright, Madeline, 34 Algiers Accords, 4 American Presidency Project, 39 Article II, 18 Axis Powers, 22
B Bayesian multilevel linear regression, 50, 54, 55, 97 Bayesian multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial regression, 82, 98 Belarus, 40, 57, 97 Bereuter, Doug, 71 Biden Administration, 38, 47, 57, 69 Biden, J.R., 4, 17, 38, 39, 47, 69, 96 Bingham, Jonathan, 25 Bin Laden, Osama, 34–36 Bonn Agreement, 37 Burundi, 40, 57, 95, 96 Bush, G.W., 8, 10, 27, 36–38, 43
C Cambodia, 23, 25 Carter, Jimmy, 3, 4, 39 China, 22, 23, 40, 57, 78 Church, Frank, 23 Clinton, W.J., 1, 2, 27, 33–35 Cold War, 9, 22, 25, 78 Constitution, 3, 18, 19 Côte d’Ivoire, 43, 44, 50, 85, 97 Crimea, 68–70 Cuba, 23, 25
D Dames and Moore v. Regan, 26 Department of the Treasury, 73, 98
E Economic War Powers Act, 25 Emergency Banking Relief Act, 21 Esch, John Jacob, 20 Executive order, 1, 4–6, 8, 17, 22, 27, 35, 38, 39, 44, 69, 73, 85, 95, 96
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Y. Ouyang and M. A. Morgan, Talking Tough in U.S. Foreign Policy, The Evolving American Presidency, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39493-5
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F Federal Register, 26 Ford, Gerald, 25
H Haiti, 40, 57 Hostage crisis, 4
I INS v. Chadha, 26 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 4, 26, 27, 39, 70, 73, 96 Iran, 1–4, 39, 41, 47, 49, 74 Iran-Iraq War, 4
J Japan, 22
K Karzai, Hamid, 37 Kenya, 35 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 2–4 Knox, Henry, 19
L Liberia, 40, 50, 74
M MacArthur, Douglas, 22 Mandelker, Sigal, 70 Mathias, Charles, 23
N National Emergencies Act (NEA), 4, 11, 24–27, 38, 70, 73, 95–97
National emergency(ies), 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 17–19, 22–24, 26, 27, 35, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 47, 49, 50, 53, 54, 57, 62, 69, 70, 72, 77, 80, 85, 89, 95–98 Nixon, Richard, 23, 24 North Korea, 22, 23, 25, 40, 74
O Obama, B.H., 27, 44, 47, 57, 69, 85, 95 Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), 22, 23, 70, 73, 74, 85, 98, 100 Omar, Mullah Mohammad, 33, 34, 37
P Poland, 21 Presidential communication, 41, 99 Presidential rhetoric, 8, 9, 11, 38, 41, 42, 47, 50, 57, 59, 62, 70, 73, 74, 77, 80, 83, 85, 88, 89, 96–98 Putin, Vladimir, 68, 69
R Reagan, Ronald, 4, 26, 57 Regan v. Wald, 26 Rhetoric, 8, 9, 27, 39, 43, 47–51, 53, 54, 57, 59, 60, 62, 70, 72, 77, 78, 80, 89, 96–98 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 21, 22 Russia, 40, 57, 67–70, 99
S Sanction effectiveness, 10, 71, 100 Sanction rhetoric, 41, 47–50, 57, 59–61, 80, 83, 84
INDEX
Sanctions, 1, 4, 7, 9–11, 17, 20, 23, 25–27, 35, 38, 39, 41, 50, 52, 53, 62, 69–74, 77–80, 85–89, 96–100 Saudi Arabia, 34 Sentiment analysis, 41–43, 62, 97, 99 Shah, Mohammad Reza, 2–4 Shanahan, Patrick, 1 Shays, Daniel, 18, 19 Shays’ Rebellion, 19 Somalia, 40, 74 South Sudan, 40, 50, 74 Sudan, 34, 35, 40, 76, 85, 97
U Ukraine, 40, 47, 67–70 US-German Peace Treaty, 21
T Taliban, 33–38 Tanzania, 35 Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA), 20–22, 24–26, 97 Trump, D.J., 1, 27, 41, 57, 70, 95, 96, 99
Y Yanukovych, Viktor, 67, 68 Yemen, 36, 40, 74
V Vietnam, 23, 25, 52 W War Powers Resolution, 23 Washington, George, 17, 19 Wilson, Woodrow, 20 Wyatt, Walter, 21
Z Zimbabwe, 40, 57, 97
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