19th Annual Student Research Conference
Social Science
Presidential and Congressional Party Affiliation’s Effects On Intervention in Third World Internal Wars
Christopher N. Bell
Dr. John Quinn, Faculty Mentor
When and where the US has intervened are questions that have not been sufficiently analyzed. The focus of this paper is to test one of the major theories involving US intervention abroad. Covington (1995) asserts that the ability of a president to act is constrained by Congress especially when he is a minority party president. Conversely, the President should have the most power to intervene abroad when he/she is of the same party of both the House and Senate. I test Covington’s assertion in the specific realm of United States intervention into third world internal wars. Performing a binary logit regression analysis, I do not find support of the hypothesis. However, I do find two significant predictors of United States intervention: having communist ties or producing oil both strongly increase the likelihood the US will intervene in third world conflicts.
Keywords: Intervention, Party Affiliation, President , Congress
Topic(s):Political Science
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 44-2
Location: VH 1232
Time: 1:30