The American Presidency POS 4413 Helpful website http desart us courses 3150 First main theory Nuestadt s Book Presidential Power 1960 how to manual for modern presidents Emphasizes personal basis of presidential power Ability to command is limited president must be good at persuading and bargaining How to maintain base of persuasive power President s power to persuade rests on A Professional reputation among other political actors in DC Is president skillful tenacious trustworthy good at bargaining B Public prestige public approval standing outside DC among the public I Studying the Presidency A Goals of social science difficulties in building theories about the presidency Goal is develop and test theory Generate hypotheses and test with data Needs to be falsifiable Difficulties in building theories most often are caused by lack of data It s hard to observe up close Written information tends to be biased Top players don t want to talk Each president is unique no uniform theory of behavior for President s Small N only 43 presidents Only 13 modern presidents What do we focus on Relationships with others Decisions Other executives B How do we tend to learn about presidencies and what kinds of information data are available We tend to learn about Presidencies through memoirs journalistic accounts and academic case studies Data available includes success in passing legislation approval ratings election rates veto rates and congressional appointment data C What factors make study of the presidency difficult from a social science perspective Lack of information as outlined above Difficult to observe Validity of information received is in question constant play on perception by the White House to accomplish agendas II Presidential Leadership and Conceptions Models of the Presidency A Theories of presidential power 1 Constitutional Strict Constructionist Power of the Presidency is explicitly limited to what is stated or defined by the Constitution or granted by Congress Taft 2 Stewardship President can do anything that is not forbidden by Constitution or congressional laws T Roosevelt 3 Prerogative President can do not only everything that is no forbidden but even things that are explicitly forbidden when in the best interest of the country Lincoln B Brief historical overview of growth of the office into the modern presidency Inklings of the modern presidency could be seen in Teddy Roosevelt s policy making expansion It could further be seen in the presidency of Lincoln as he took complete control of the operations of the country I would say the growth of the office into the modern presidency formally occurred with Franklin Roosevelt Roosevelt expanded executive power and placed economic responsibility on the President The Executive Office of the President was created under F Roosevelt which provided the structure for the Presidency as we see it today with approximately 1900 employees and an annual cost of 400 million dollars Congress has allowed the President to have a larger role in administrating The modern presidency allows for manipulation of public opinion in order to control Congress Growth of the office has been facilitated by a few key Presidents over time C Roles of the modern president Rossiter s discussion of Constitutional and extra Constitutional roles Constitutional Roles 1 Chief of State ceremonial symbolic 2 Chief Executive Chief Administrator 3 Chief Legislator 4 Chief Diplomat 5 Commander in Chief Extra Constitutional Roles 1 Chief of Political Party 2 Manager of the economy 3 Voice of the people Woodrow Wilson 4 Protector of peace 5 World leader D Evolution in conceptions models of the modern presidency Nelson s two questions How strong is the Presidency Empirical Question Is Presidential strength good or bad Normative Question Can t measure Answered by 1 Savior Model including Neustadt s treatment of presidential power Heroic Superman or Textbook model 1940 s 1960 s Strong presidency is good Preference for activist liberal president Motivated Neustadt s Presidential Power 1960 2 Satan Model Late 1960s 1970s Response to excesses of Johnson and Nixon Pointed to the dangers of strong executive Arthur M Schlesinger 1973 The Imperial Presidency 3 Samson Model 1970s present Weak administrations of Ford and Carter Expectations gap Savior Model tempered by the caveats of the Satan Model Geoffrey Hodgson 1980 All Things to All Men E Doctrine of the Unitary Executive Theory of American Constitutional law holding that the President controls the entire executive branch This is based on Article Two of the United States Constitution The doctrine pertains to the power held by Presidents to act alone The doctrine includes such things as Executive orders and proclamations executive agreements and foreign policy doctrines war powers legislative vetoes and signing statements Judicial pardons would also fall under the doctrine of the Unitary Executive F Skowronek s discussion of Presidential Leadership in Political Time Skowronek proposes that we divide President s into time rather than simply the two areas of current evaluation Constitutional Presidency and Modern Presidency Skowronek divides the history into political regimes such as the Jeffersonian 1800 28 the Jacksonian 1828 60 the Republican 1860 1932 and the New Deal 1932 80 He says that by doing this we can avoid looking at history as apiece or detach modern presidents from the past ones instead it divides Presidential history into distinct time periods It is important to understand the Political Time sequence Reconstruction new regime put in place Articulation with occasional Preemption Disjunction Then back to Reconstruction again It s important to understand these political time phases Politics of disjunction This is the period when a long standing political order is no longer capable of addressing the challenges facing the country These leaders are caught between the demands of their supporters and their need to take actions their supporters oppose The most recent example is Jimmy Carter others include Hoover Franklin Pierce and John Quincy Adams Not a distinguished list but Skowronek argues it has less to do with their limitations then the reality that they were governing in impossible times They could not satisfy the demands of their supporters leaving them isolated and vulnerable to electoral defeat Politics of reconstruction This is for the presidents who establish new political orders After the politics of disjunction