One of the political maxims that the late Thomas P. O’Neill (“Tip”), Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was famous for was “all politics is local.”  What O’Neill meant by this was that the voting decisions of members of the House were determined in large part by the constituency they represented.  So, in his outreach to his colleagues to support a particular piece of legislation, he would explain how it was good for their district.  O’Neill realized that in the final analysis, members of the House would need to persuade their constituents that the vote they had cast was in their own best interests.

Too often, when we analyse international politics and in particular peace building, we forget to take this domestic political calculus into account.  Unfortunately, leaders often fail to take this into account as well.  Two examples from twentieth century American history are representative of how local politics shape international affairs.  In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, went to Europe to negotiate what became known as the Treaty of Versailles.  Wilson approached the treaty negotiations as more of a college professor than a politician.  Even though the Republicans had won the Senate in the 1918 elections, he only brought a single Republican with him to Europe. Furthermore, Wilson remained in Europe for almost six months which allowed his opponents to dominate the debate back home.  In the end, Wilson failed to get the Senate to approve the Treaty of Versailles which doomed any chance of American involvement in building the post-World War 1 world.

On the other side of the coin, President Franklin Roosevelt, learning from Wilson’s mistakes, adeptly considered American political dynamics as he secured congressional approval for critical aid to Great Britain in 1940 and 1941.  While Roosevelt clearly recognized the threat posed by Nazi Germany, he also understood the internal political dynamics.  Despite the looming threats, American public opinion before the attack on Pearl Harbor was strongly opposed to any involvement in European affairs.  Given this sentiment, Roosevelt knew that he had to temper his approach.  In 1940, he provided aid to Great Britain under a scheme which involved trading American naval warships for British military bases.  The next year, Roosevelt developed the concept of “lend lease”- a  metaphor he used of lending a neighbor a fire hose to get aid to Great Britain through Congress.

Local political dynamics also influence non-state actors.  An outstanding example of this are the negotiations that led to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement.  Both Gerry Adams and David Trimble had to consider in their political calculus what they could agree to and what they could accept in the Agreement.  To their credit, both British Prime Minister Tony Blair and American President Bill Clinton realized the internal pressures on Adams and Trimble and acted accordingly.

International actors always have one foot in the foreign arena and another in their domestic politics.  Successful political leaders can juggle both their international and domestic fronts.

The task for those of us who study international relations and conflict transformation is ensure in our analysis that we adequately describe this dual focus that political leaders must have.  Anything less does not reflect the complexity of the international arena.

Martin Burns recently graduated from the Masters degree programme: Conflict Transformation and Social Justice.  His dissertation was on The Politics of Persuasion: How the Irish Republican Leadership Sold the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to their Constituency.