ABSTRACT
Bipartisan foreign policy is an apt term for legislative-executive agreement, however, in a period of divided government when the President belongs to one political party and the majority of Congress belongs to the other. The term is somewhat misleading if it implies a single bipartisan US foreign policy as a whole. US foreign policy is comprised of many policies and programs for different geographical regions and functional problems, and may include international economic and military policy. A bipartisan consensus may be said to exist when the President and the majority of both parties in Congress, or Senate alone in the case of treaties, agree on a given policy. The concept of nonpartisanship in foreign policy appears to be a forerunner to the concept of bipartisanship. Many drawbacks exist in attempting to use party platforms to determine a party’s position on foreign policy. Despite notable differences, the Democratic and Republican platforms in 1988 showed several areas of agreement in foreign policy.
