TY - BOOK AU - Fowler,Linda L. TI - Watchdogs on the Hill: The Decline of Congressional Oversight of U.S. Foreign Relations SN - 9780691151618 AV - JK585 .F69 2017 U1 - 328.730746 23 PY - 2015///] CY - Princeton, NJ : PB - Princeton University Press, KW - International relations KW - Legislative oversight KW - United States KW - POLITICAL SCIENCE / American Government / Legislative Branch KW - bisacsh KW - Abu Ghraib Prison KW - Constitution KW - Defense Department KW - Department of Defense KW - Iraq War KW - Panama Canal KW - Senate Armed Services Committee KW - Senate Foreign Relations Committee KW - Senate committee KW - Senate watchdogs KW - Senate KW - State Department KW - Truman Doctrine KW - U.S. Congress KW - U.S. Constitution KW - U.S. foreign policy KW - U.S. foreign relations KW - Vietnam War KW - congressional war powers KW - democratic accountability KW - divided government KW - executive branch KW - fire alarms KW - foreign affairs KW - foreign policy KW - foreign relations KW - institutional changes KW - international affairs KW - military casualties KW - national security oversight KW - national security KW - police patrols KW - presidency KW - public hearings KW - public opinion KW - public understanding KW - reform proposals KW - rule of law KW - scandals KW - secret hearings KW - war powers KW - wars N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Illustrations --; Tables --; Preface --; Acknowledgments --; PART I. Information, Regular Order, and Democratic Accountability in International Affairs --; PART II. Oversight Hearings and Regular Order in U.S. Foreign Relations --; PART III. Reclaiming Congressional War Powers --; APPENDIX A. Coding Congressional Committee Hearings --; APPENDIX B. Description of Dependent and Independent Variables --; APPENDIX C. Methodological Appendix to Chapter 3 --; APPENDIX D. Methodological Appendix to Chapter 4 --; APPENDIX E. Methodological Appendix to Chapter 5 --; References --; Index; restricted access; Issued also in print N2 - An essential responsibility of the U.S. Congress is holding the president accountable for the conduct of foreign policy. In this in-depth look at formal oversight hearings by the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, Linda Fowler evaluates how the legislature's most visible and important watchdogs performed from the mid-twentieth century to the present. She finds a noticeable reduction in public and secret hearings since the mid-1990s and establishes that American foreign policy frequently violated basic conditions for democratic accountability. Committee scrutiny of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, she notes, fell below levels of oversight in prior major conflicts.Fowler attributes the drop in watchdog activity to growing disinterest among senators in committee work, biases among members who join the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, and motives that shield presidents, particularly Republicans, from public inquiry. Her detailed case studies of the Truman Doctrine, Vietnam War, Panama Canal Treaty, humanitarian mission in Somalia, and Iraq War illustrate the importance of oversight in generating the information citizens need to judge the president's national security policies. She argues for a reassessment of congressional war powers and proposes reforms to encourage Senate watchdogs to improve public deliberation about decisions of war and peace.Watchdogs on the Hill investigates America's national security oversight and its critical place in the review of congressional and presidential powers in foreign policy UR - https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400866465?locatt=mode:legacy UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781400866465 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/cover/covers/9781400866465.jpg ER -