Politics in the United States today are characterized by remarkable levels of partisan polarization. Although there is widespread consensus on the problems that polarization poses for domestic affairs, there is much debate about whether partisanship extends “beyond the water's edge” into foreign affairs. Jordan Tama's Bipartisanship and US Foreign Policy provides a more optimistic perspective than often is found in popular media. Tama argues that bipartisan coalition building continues to be a key feature of legislative activity in foreign affairs.

In his meticulously researched book, Tama makes three major contributions to debates about polarization and US foreign policy. The first contribution is to convincingly demonstrate that “strong polarization remains the exception, rather than the norm” (215) on legislation related to foreign affairs. Using an original data set on major Congressional roll call votes, Tama shows that, apart from immigration policy, bipartisanship persists across multiple domains of foreign policy.

The second contribution of the book is a novel conceptualization of bipartisanship. Congressional activity is often characterized as either partisan or bipartisan. Tama, however, explains that bipartisanship comes in many forms. Legislators coalesce to support (pro-presidential bipartisanship