{"title":"Co-Optation at the Creation: Leaders, Elite Consensus, and Postwar International Order","authors":"Austin Carson, Matthew J. Conklin","doi":"10.1080/09636412.2022.2133628","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article analyzes how democratic leaders cultivate an elite consensus in favor of participating in international institutions. We theorize two tactics to prevent elite dissent. Delegating early policy development to technocratic and nonpartisan experts can set a depoliticized tone. Later integration of opposition elites into the process can create powerful advocates that expand support to a consensus. We assess contrasting fates of the United Nations (UN) and International Trade Organization (ITO). Haunted by Woodrow Wilson’s failure to win approval for the League of Nations, leaders outsourced early planning for a UN to the Council on Foreign Relations. Later, Franklin D. Roosevelt and top aides tapped moderate Republicans for the US delegation to San Francisco, creating powerful Republican advocates. In contrast, leaders developed the ITO in-house and excluded legislative elites in final negotiations, provoking elite dissent. These tactics shed new light on leaders, elites, and the domestic politics of international order and hegemony.","PeriodicalId":47478,"journal":{"name":"Security Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"634 - 666"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Security Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2022.2133628","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract This article analyzes how democratic leaders cultivate an elite consensus in favor of participating in international institutions. We theorize two tactics to prevent elite dissent. Delegating early policy development to technocratic and nonpartisan experts can set a depoliticized tone. Later integration of opposition elites into the process can create powerful advocates that expand support to a consensus. We assess contrasting fates of the United Nations (UN) and International Trade Organization (ITO). Haunted by Woodrow Wilson’s failure to win approval for the League of Nations, leaders outsourced early planning for a UN to the Council on Foreign Relations. Later, Franklin D. Roosevelt and top aides tapped moderate Republicans for the US delegation to San Francisco, creating powerful Republican advocates. In contrast, leaders developed the ITO in-house and excluded legislative elites in final negotiations, provoking elite dissent. These tactics shed new light on leaders, elites, and the domestic politics of international order and hegemony.
期刊介绍:
Security Studies publishes innovative scholarly manuscripts that make a significant contribution – whether theoretical, empirical, or both – to our understanding of international security. Studies that do not emphasize the causes and consequences of war or the sources and conditions of peace fall outside the journal’s domain. Security Studies features articles that develop, test, and debate theories of international security – that is, articles that address an important research question, display innovation in research, contribute in a novel way to a body of knowledge, and (as appropriate) demonstrate theoretical development with state-of-the art use of appropriate methodological tools. While we encourage authors to discuss the policy implications of their work, articles that are primarily policy-oriented do not fit the journal’s mission. The journal publishes articles that challenge the conventional wisdom in the area of international security studies. Security Studies includes a wide range of topics ranging from nuclear proliferation and deterrence, civil-military relations, strategic culture, ethnic conflicts and their resolution, epidemics and national security, democracy and foreign-policy decision making, developments in qualitative and multi-method research, and the future of security studies.