War at the Doorstep: Presidential Leadership in Foreign and Security Policy

Abstract

After 77 years, war has returned to Europe in the form of concrete threats from both the East and the South. Russia's attack on Ukraine in February 2022 has sparked the biggest military conflict since the Second World War. At the same time, the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict has erupted again in an unprecedented wave of violence, leading to a war that has effectively engulfed the entire Middle East region, with repercussions in Europe. Against this background, European countries are failing to implement a clear and, above all, credible strategy. The EU has been unable to develop a real defence policy over time, with many of its founding members opposing it, and most European states do not allocate enough of their public spending to defence, hoping to rely on the American umbrella, which could close after Trump's inauguration. The panel will discuss how the deteriorating security context in different countries and regions affects the role and powers of presidents, how this affects the relationship between the presidency and the government, and the expectations of citizens. On the one hand, we know that in times of war or military crises, foreign and defence policy is kept firmly in the hands of the president in presidential systems as well as in semi-presidential countries with strong presidents, while in parliamentary systems these policies strengthen the figure of the prime minister even more. Nevertheless, there is not much research that focuses on disentangling the specific relations between Presidents and PMs and their governments in semi-presidential systems with regard to foreign and security policy (see for exception Sedelius, Mashalter and Raunio, 2024). This panel calls for papers that explore these issues from a wide range of perspectives. In particular, we are interested in understanding how the division of labour and competencies in foreign and defence policy works in contexts where the president has a clear dominance in these areas, but also in other (parliamentary) contexts where the president does not have such competencies, but could nevertheless bring out his positions in this area either in favour of or in a different direction from that of the government. Similarly, we are interested in papers that focus on how presidents communicate war-related events and their positions, as we still know little about how they build and maintain their authority before the citizens in the context of heightened geopolitical tensions, armed conflicts, and increasing threats to democratic norms. Contributions may be theoretical, empirical or methodological, using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods approaches. We welcome comparative research as well as case studies.

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