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the literature on the influence of elections on foreign policy is how the president’s status as a politician
influences the president’s decisions as a foreign policy maker.
The previous research has tended to emphasize that presidents either respond predominantly as
foreign policy makers (basing policy largely on foreign policy considerations) or politicians (basing
policy mostly on political factors) as they make foreign policy choices during election years. Unlike most
previous analyses, I argue that presidents largely blend foreign policy and electoral considerations as they
make their choices. In essence, presidents search for, and construct, foreign policies that have the best
hope of meeting both their policy and electoral motivations. Rather than focusing on either foreign or
electoral factors when making foreign policy in election years, this paper portrays presidents as conflicted
decision makers who equally weigh both factors.
In addition, this paper also disputes the notion that presidents seek international confrontation
and/or success for political gain (“October Surprises” or to “wagging the dog”). Instead of attempting to
use foreign policy to boost their approval ratings, presidents react defensively in their approach by
attempting to defuse issues electorally. Since the actions to defuse a situation might at times involve
aggressive or conciliatory policy depending on the substantive issue, elections have no systematic effect
on the nature of policies adopted. Depending on the circumstances, elections can cause both aggressive
or conciliatory policy choices. This result provides one explanation for the divergent scholarly findings.
After briefly reviewing the previous literature on this question and discussing methodology, this paper
examines these arguments and issues with an intensive case study of Richard M. Nixon’s foreign policy
decision making in the March-July 1972 Vietnam mines crisis. In this incident, after North Vietnam
invaded South Vietnam on March 30, 1972, Nixon chose to escalate the war by mining North Vietnam’s
harbors and bombing the North in hopes of preventing the loss of South Vietnam which Nixon believed
would be a disaster in both foreign policy and electoral terms. Although he considered canceling the
Soviet summit, he decided not to in hopes of either still having the summit (and thereby receiving an
electoral bump) or placing the burden for harming “peace” on the Soviets (and minimizing electoral
Convention