The Reagan Defense Buildup and Partisanship on Capitol Hill: .x000d.Has Foreign Policy Promoted Party Polarization?

In postwar America, bipartisanship over foreign policy on Capitol Hill has long been characterized by politics stopping at the water’s edge. Much attention has been paid to party polarization over social and cultural issues, but few studies have examined the nature of foreign policy disputes as a source of party polarization. This paper focuses on the party politics of the Reagan defense buildup and analyzes roll-call vote decisions by liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats over military spending in the 1980s. Echoing Roberts and Smith (2003), the review of party conversion over foreign policy during the Reagan years results in a reevaluation of the timing of changes in party polarization. As congressional deference to the president over foreign policy has been no longer the norm since the early 1980s, congressional parties have found it easy to agree to disagree. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]