The tactics of foreign policy agenda-setting: Issue choice and the president’s weekly radio address

Abstract

The American president’s foreign policy agenda represents a complex mix of policy preferences driven both by necessity and choice. It would seem that, given the ability of other actors to substantially influence the nature of the president’s foreign policy agenda, and given the president’s own limited time, attention and expertise, the president’s ability to put issues on his foreign policy agenda would be fairly circumscribed. However, is this necessarily the case? In fact, we argue and show that presidents are able to manipulate the foreign policy agenda and make tactical choices regarding when to emphasize foreign policy issues in order to advance their policy preferences. We argue that presidents’ weekly radio addresses to the nation represent one such expression of presidential agenda-setting that scholars have largely neglected. It is our contention that presidents use these speeches to direct or redirect domestic attention away from some issues and toward others. We model the president’s foreign policy agenda, as expressed in the choice of issues selected for the weekly radio addresses, as a function of the president’s policy preferences regarding the US domestic political environment and the international environment and other key factors.