A chapter on the relationship between political parties and US foreign policy is itself something of a new direction in books about US foreign policy. A brief survey reveals a distinct lack of attention to this relationship (Dumbrell 1990; Brewer 1992; Deese 1994; Wittkopf and McCormick 1999; Jentleson 2004). Implicit in this absence is the assumption that political parties play no significant role in US foreign policy. This ignoring of parties does not, however, reflect a wider neglect of actors internal to state and society, since the roles of Congress, public opinion, interest groups and the media are not ignored. Rather, a combination of the following beliefs seems to be at work:

1 that foreign policy is generally ‘bipartisan’ and that parties and their ideologies therefore have no explanatory significance;

2 that Congress is the only arena in which party matters, where it acts as an organizing principle and structures behaviour. The foreign policy-making process, however, is dominated by the executive branch of government and the presidency, which are much less shaped by partisan influences. The irrelevance of Congress thus ensures the irrelevance of parties.