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Author: Benjamin Ginsberg Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000400042 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 209
Book Description
Those who saw Donald Trump as a novel threat looming over American democracy and now think the danger has passed may not have been paying much attention to the political developments of the past several decades. Trump was merely the most recent—and will surely not be the last—in a long line of presidents who expanded the powers of the office and did not hesitate to act unilaterally when so doing served their purposes. Unfortunately, Trump is also unlikely to be the last president prepared to do away with his enemies in the Congress and transform the imperial presidency from a theory to a reality. Though presidents are elected more or less democratically, the presidency is not and was never intended to be a democratic institution. The framers thought that America would be governed by its representative assembly, the Congress of the United States. Presidential power, like a dangerous pharmaceutical, might have been labelled, "to be used only when needed." Today, Congress sporadically engages in law making but the president actually governs. Congress has become more an inquisitorial than a legislative body. Presidents rule through edicts while their opponents in the Congress counter with the threat of impeachment—an action that amounts to a political, albeit nonviolent coup. The courts sputter and fume but generally back the president. This is the new separation of powers—the president exercises power and the other branches are separated from it. Where will this end? Regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, the imperial presidency is inexorably bringing down the curtain on American representative democracy.
Author: Benjamin Ginsberg Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000400042 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 209
Book Description
Those who saw Donald Trump as a novel threat looming over American democracy and now think the danger has passed may not have been paying much attention to the political developments of the past several decades. Trump was merely the most recent—and will surely not be the last—in a long line of presidents who expanded the powers of the office and did not hesitate to act unilaterally when so doing served their purposes. Unfortunately, Trump is also unlikely to be the last president prepared to do away with his enemies in the Congress and transform the imperial presidency from a theory to a reality. Though presidents are elected more or less democratically, the presidency is not and was never intended to be a democratic institution. The framers thought that America would be governed by its representative assembly, the Congress of the United States. Presidential power, like a dangerous pharmaceutical, might have been labelled, "to be used only when needed." Today, Congress sporadically engages in law making but the president actually governs. Congress has become more an inquisitorial than a legislative body. Presidents rule through edicts while their opponents in the Congress counter with the threat of impeachment—an action that amounts to a political, albeit nonviolent coup. The courts sputter and fume but generally back the president. This is the new separation of powers—the president exercises power and the other branches are separated from it. Where will this end? Regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, the imperial presidency is inexorably bringing down the curtain on American representative democracy.
Author: Dino P. Christenson Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022670453X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 295
Book Description
Throughout American history, presidents have shown a startling power to act independently of Congress and the courts. On their own initiative, presidents have taken the country to war, abolished slavery, shielded undocumented immigrants from deportation, declared a national emergency at the border, and more, leading many to decry the rise of an imperial presidency. But given the steep barriers that usually prevent Congress and the courts from formally checking unilateral power, what stops presidents from going it alone even more aggressively? The answer, Dino P. Christenson and Douglas L. Kriner argue, lies in the power of public opinion. With robust empirical data and compelling case studies, the authors reveal the extent to which domestic public opinion limits executive might. Presidents are emboldened to pursue their own agendas when they enjoy strong public support, and constrained when they don’t, since unilateral action risks inciting political pushback, jeopardizing future initiatives, and further eroding their political capital. Although few Americans instinctively recoil against unilateralism, Congress and the courts can sway the public’s view via their criticism of unilateral policies. Thus, other branches can still check the executive branch through political means. As long as presidents are concerned with public opinion, Christenson and Kriner contend that fears of an imperial presidency are overblown.
Author: Andrew Rudalevige Publisher: University of Michigan Press ISBN: 0472021389 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 375
Book Description
Has the imperial presidency returned? "Well written and, while indispensable for college courses, should appeal beyond academic audiences to anyone interested in how well we govern ourselves. . . . I cannot help regarding it as a grand sequel for my own The Imperial Presidency." ---Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Has the imperial presidency returned? This question has been on the minds of many contemporary political observers, as recent American administrations have aimed to consolidate power. In The New Imperial Presidency, Andrew Rudalevige suggests that the congressional framework meant to advise and constrain presidential conduct since Watergate has slowly eroded. Rudalevige describes the evolution of executive power in our separated system of governance. He discusses the abuse of power that prompted what he calls the "resurgence regime" against the imperial presidency and inquires as to how and why---over the three decades that followed Watergate---presidents have regained their standing. Chief executives have always sought to interpret constitutional powers broadly. The ambitious president can choose from an array of strategies for pushing against congressional authority; finding scant resistance, he will attempt to expand executive control. Rudalevige's important and timely work reminds us that the freedoms secured by our system of checks and balances do not proceed automatically but depend on the exertions of public servants and the citizens they serve. His story confirms the importance of the "living Constitution," a tradition of historical experiences overlaying the text of the Constitution itself.
Author: Dino P. Christenson Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022670436X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 295
Book Description
Throughout American history, presidents have shown a startling power to act independently of Congress and the courts. On their own initiative, presidents have taken the country to war, abolished slavery, shielded undocumented immigrants from deportation, declared a national emergency at the border, and more, leading many to decry the rise of an imperial presidency. But given the steep barriers that usually prevent Congress and the courts from formally checking unilateral power, what stops presidents from going it alone even more aggressively? The answer, Dino P. Christenson and Doulas L. Kriner argue, lies in the power of public opinion. With robust empirical data and compelling case studies, the authors reveal the extent to which domestic public opinion limits executive might. Presidents are emboldened to pursue their own agendas when they enjoy strong public support, and constrained when they don’t, since unilateral action risks inciting political pushback, jeopardizing future initiatives, and further eroding their political capital. Although few Americans instinctively recoil against unilateralism, Congress and the courts can sway the public’s view via their criticism of unilateral policies. Thus, other branches can still check the executive branch through political means. As long as presidents are concerned with public opinion, Christenson and Kriner contend that fears of an imperial presidency are overblown.
Author: Charlie Savage Publisher: Little, Brown ISBN: 0316019615 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 486
Book Description
In 1789, the Founding Fathers came up with a system of checks and balances to keep kingly powers out of the hands of American presidents. But in the 1970s and '80s, a faction of Republican loyalists, outraged by the fall of the imperial presidency after Watergate and the Vietnam War, abandoned conservatives' traditional suspicion of concentrated government power. These men hatched a plot that would allow the White House to return to, or even surpass, the virtually unchecked powers that Richard Nixon had briefly tried to wield. Congress would be defanged, and the commander-in-chief would be able to assert a unilateral dominance both at home and abroad. Today, this plot is coming to fruition. As Takeover reveals, the Bush-Cheney administration has succeeded in seizing vast powers for the presidency by throwing off many of the restraints placed upon it by Congress, the courts, and the Constitution. This timely book unveils the secret machinations behind the headlines, explaining the links between warrantless wiretapping and the President Bush's Supreme Court nominees, between the torture debate and the secrecy surrounding Vice President Cheney's energy task force, and between the "faith-based initiative" and the holding of US citizens without trial as "enemy combatants." It tells, for the first time, the full story of a hidden agenda three decades in the making, laying out how a group of true believers set out to establish monarchical executive powers that, in the words of one conservative critic, "will lie around like a loaded weapon" ready to be picked up by any future president. Brilliantly reported and deftly told, Takeover is a searing investigation into how the constitutional balance of our democracy is in danger of being permanently altered. For anyone who cares about America's past, present, and future, it is essential reading.
Author: Stephen Skowronek Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0197543103 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
A powerful dissection of one of the fundamental problems in American governance today: the clash between presidents determined to redirect the nation through ever-tighter control of administration and an executive branch still organized to promote shared interests in steady hands, due deliberation, and expertise. President Trump pitted himself repeatedly against the institutions and personnel of the executive branch. In the process, two once-obscure concepts came center stage in an eerie faceoff. On one side was the specter of a "Deep State" conspiracyadministrators threatening to thwart the will of the people and undercut the constitutional authority of the president they elected to lead them. On the other side was a raw personalization of presidential power, one that a theory of "the unitary executive" gussied up and allowed to run roughshod over reason and the rule of law. The Deep State and the unitary executive framed every major contest of the Trump presidency. Like phantom twins, they drew each other out. These conflicts are not new. Stephen Skowronek, John A. Dearborn, and Desmond King trace the tensions between presidential power and the depth of the American state back through the decades and forward through the various settlements arrived at in previous eras. Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic is about the breakdown of settlements and the abiding vulnerabilities of a Constitution that gave scant attention to administrative power. Rather than simply dump on Trump, the authors provide a richly historical perspective on the conflicts that rocked his presidency, and they explain why, if left untamed, the phantom twins will continue to pull the American government apart.
Author: Matthew A. Crenson Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 9780393064889 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 448
Book Description
This book explores how American presidents--especially those of the past three decades--have increased the power of the presidency at the expense of democracy.
Author: Gary Schmitt Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1538101033 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 186
Book Description
Time and again, in recent years, the charge has been made that sitting presidents have behaved “imperially,” employing authorities that break the bounds of law and the Constitution. It is now an epithet used to describe presidencies of both parties. The Imperial Presidency and the Constitution examines this critical issue from a variety of perspectives: analyzing the president’s role in the administrative state, as commander-in-chief, as occupant of the modern “Bully Pulpit,” and, in separate essays, addressing recent presidents’ relationship with Congress and the Supreme Court. The volume also deepens the discussion by taking a look back at Abraham Lincoln’s expansive use of executive power during the Civil War where the tension between law and necessity were at their most extreme, calling into question the “rule of law” itself. The volume concludes with an examination of how the Constitution’s provision of both “powers and duties” for the president can provide a roadmap for assessing the propriety of executive behavior.
Author: Arthur Meier Schlesinger Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin ISBN: 9780395177136 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 505
Book Description
From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., comes one of the most important and influential investigations of the American presidency. The Imperial Presidency traces the growth of presidential power over two centuries, from George Washington to George W. Bush, examining how it has both served and harmed the Constitution and what Americans can do about it in years to come. The book that gave the phrase "imperial presidency" to the language, this is a work of "substantial scholarship written with lucidity, charm, and wit" (The New Yorker).
Author: Benjamin Ginsberg
Author: Benjamin Ginsberg
Author: Arthur Meier Schlesinger
Author: Dino P. Christenson
Author: Andrew Rudalevige
Author: Dino P. Christenson
Author: Charlie Savage
Author: Stephen Skowronek
Author: Matthew A. Crenson
Author: Gary Schmitt
Author: Arthur Meier Schlesinger