Research

Foreign policy doesn’t give members of Congress much chance to deliver benefits to their districts, and voters are typically disinterested. So why do lawmakers spend time on it? My research shows that party, ideology, and constituents all matter. Using a new dataset that tracks both lawmakers’ rhetoric in newsletters and their bill sponsorships, I find that Republicans pay more attention to foreign affairs than Democrats, not just because they’re often in the opposition but also because they seem to “own” the issue. I also show that both constituent interests and personal backgrounds shape how lawmakers engage with foreign policy and trade. Overall, the project explains how Congress approaches a policy area dominated by the executive and sheds light on party differences in representation.