Who Supports Global Economic Engagement? The Sources of Preferences in American Foreign Economic Policy

Using votes in the US House of Representatives from 1979-2004, we explore different theoretical predictions about foreign economic policy. Unlike other studies, we assess the impact of a wide variety of factors: political economy, foreign policy pressures, and ideology.

We find three surprising results. Aid preferences are as affected by the same domestic political economy factors as trade ones. Trade preferences, but not economic aid ones, are shaped by the president’s foreign policy concerns; for economic aid, domestic political economy factors matter more than foreign policy ones.