PS: Political Science & Politics

Table of Contents - January 2009 - Volume 42, Issue 01  

Association News

CONGRESSIONAL FELLOWSHIP REPORT: Congressional Tools in Foreign Policy: Rock, Paper, or Scissors? War Games of the Legislative Branch

Julie Goodmana1

a1 2007–08 Congressional Fellow

There are the telltale signs: men with squiggly earpieces emerge from SUVs with dark-tinted windows and government license plates, and heading stoically through the corridors of the Rayburn House Office Building. This is the unmistakable advance of the executive branch, with its flashiest U.S. Defense and State Department officials, and their convergence on their legislative counterpart to appear humbly before watchdog-minded committee chairs.

Julie Goodman was a Congressional Fellow with the Subcommittee of the Middle East and South Asia, of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. She is now a mutual funds reporter in New York for BoardIQ, a Financial Times service.

Footnotes

I conducted interviews with congressional staffers for background information. To preserve confidentiality, sources of non-public information will not be revealed. I also interviewed Dr. Charles A. Stevenson, professorial lecturer in American foreign policy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. The observations in this essay are solely mine and do not represent the views of the Subcommittee, its staff, or the U.S. House of Representatives.

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