Legislative Coalitions and Presidential Signing Statements

We examine how the congressional coalition in favor of a law affects the probability of the president appending a positive or negative signing statement to it. Our results show that coalitions matter—presidents consider the power and status of a law's sponsor and the composition of its cosponsorship coalition when deciding whether to offer praise or raise concerns. Moreover, the factors driving praise and criticism differ from one another in important ways. These analyses demonstrate the value of assessing the valence of a signing statement rather than just its presence, and of extending the focus of research on signing statements beyond aggregate factors to investigate how the context surrounding a particular law shapes the president's reaction to it.     

The President as Legislative Leader: The Use of Veto Power in Environmental Policy Making

Presidents use legislative powers in many ways to influence environmental policy. The relationship between partisanship and the use of these powers is an open question. Previous research has shown that legislative powers such as the passage of legislation and budgetary decisions display bipartisan effects. This study argues that this does not hold true for veto power. Presidents of different parties approach environmental legislation differently and use vetoes in dissimilar ways. Understanding these differences allows for a better comprehension of how environmental policy decisions are made and the role of presidents in this process.     

Presidential Speeches and the Stages of the Legislative Process

Presidents go public frequently to increase their success in Congress. Yet scholars know little about when presidents speak within the legislative process or why. If presidential speeches are indeed a source of power for presidents, then presidents are likely to use them throughout the legislative process, not speak only to affect final passage. We argue that presidents speak generally to meet broad electoral and political goals, but target speeches according to their goals at each stage of the legislative process: to frame the debate at the agenda-setting stage, to push bills out of committee, and to finalize support from legislators at the roll call stage. We analyze 116 bills between 1989 and 2004, supplemented by Bush Library archival data and a case study of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. The results illustrate that presidents speak mostly at the agenda-setting and roll call stages and presidential attention at each stage varies by informational cues provided by the larger political environment.     

Presidential Power vs. Congressional Time: Legislative History in the First Congress of the Civil War

This study tests whether major policy shifts require several years of congressional deliberation before passage even during periods of crisis and disorganization in the minority political party. By examining the passage of major legislation during the Civil War, this study found that legislative history is a relevant and limiting factor in the passage of presidential and congressional agendas even during periods of crisis and disorganization in the minority party.     

Presidential Vetoes: Motivations and Classification

For all its importance, comparatively few, empirically-based studies have centered on the presidential veto, and virtually none have sought to classify vetoes by presidential motivation or policy area. This article updates and confirms the major findings of extant studies, and suggests one important caveat to the conclusions of older research: the categories of and reasons for presidential vetoes are remarkably similar from president to president, independent of party. Frequently, presidents have just as much in common with each other in doing battle with Congress than as Republicans or Democrats fighting for different ideological programs and considerations.     

John Calvin and the Jews: A Problem in Political Theology

Abstract

Although John Calvin rejected the angry invective of Martin Luther against the Jews, he nevertheless agreed with him that Christian biblical interpretation was a more reliable guide to the mind of the patriarchs in Genesis than the exegesis of Rabbinic Judaism. The Hebrew Bible was therefore properly understood as Christian Scripture and had always been addressed to the Church as well as to ancient Israel.     

Presidential Unilateral Actions: Constitutional and Political Checks

Throughout history, presidents have invoked a broad array of powers. Some are legitimate and well grounded; others exceed constitutional boundaries and have met defeat in Congress, the courts, and the public. Still others originate from historical errors by the Supreme Court, particularly in the field of external affairs. The powers analyzed in this article begin with these: enumerated, implied, inherent, prerogative, ministerial, and discretionary. Presidential instruments of power include executive orders and proclamations. The erroneous “sole organ” doctrine, first appearing in the Curtiss-Wright case of 1936, was at issue in the Jerusalem passport case of Zivotofsky v. Kerry. The scope of unilateral executive authority is being tested in initiatives by the Obama administration in the field of immigration policy.     

Presidential elections and Europe: the 2012 game-changer

Abstract

As well as marking 60 years since the signature of the Treaty of Rome, 2017 will see the 10th presidential election of France’s Fifth Republic. The overlap between the question of Europe and the election to France’s highest office provides the framework for this article to explore the development of the European debate in France. Prior to 2012, and despite the increasing and undeniable salience of it for French domestic concerns, the question of Europe is widely considered to have been a secondary issue in presidential elections. Focusing in particular on the period since the pivotal debate and referendum on the Maastricht Treaty and the intervening transition from ‘permissive consensus’ to ‘constraining dissensus’, this article will explain how and why Europe has seemingly defied logic to remain on the margins of successive election campaigns, before presenting the 2012 presidential elections as a game-changer on how the question of Europe featured. The conclusion offers a discussion on the ramifications for future presidential elections, starting with that of 2017.     

Neo-Conservatism and Presidential Nomination Reforms: A Critique

The neo-conservatives fault the post-1968 reforms in presidential nominations because, they argue, increased participation opportunities have weakened political parties and produced unrepresentative candidates who are unable to govern. They favor changes that would enhance the influence of party regulars and professionals because it is asserted that such participation would strengthen parties and encourage the selection of more popular and better qualified nominees. We argue that the critique suffers from several weaknesses: a failure to consider other plausible explanations for the effects attributed to the reforms; the use of inadequate or misleading measures; and the misuse of historical examples. In addition, we find that a key concept in their critique–professionalism– is not clearly defined, and that the several plausible definitions suffer from a variety of logical and analytic shortcomings. Although many political scientists     

The Tragedy of Politics: Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra

Abstract

In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare uses the story of the two lovers to dramatize the tragedy of politics. The excessive love of self that characterizes the two serves as a metaphor for the larger story of Rome's descent into tyranny. Unless love of country, that is, love of one's fellow-citizens, tempers self-love, a state loses its capacity to sustain even that degree of freedom that belongs to kingly rule. But Shakespeare also depicts the love of Antony and Cleopatra for each other as something noble; there is something worthy of our love that is higher than freedom. The tragedy of politics lies in the opposition of these two loves.     

Calvin and the Two Bodies of Christ: Fiction and Power in Dogmatic Theology

This article re-examines the slow rhetorical quality of Jean Calvin’s political theology by drawing attention to the literary dimensions of Calvin’s theological writing. In conversation with recent work on political theology and Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), I show how Calvin relies on a participatory grammar and a fictive rendering of the incarnation to theorize the relationship between the concrete body of Christ and the corporate “body” of the church. I argue that this recovers theological resources for maintaining a critical distance between words and things that resists absolutist incarnations of political theology. Foregrounding the role of fiction in constituting dogmatic theological arguments aids in distinguishing the role of theological analogies from mythical foundations. By better attending to the literary dimensions of dogmatic theological writings, it may be possible to further complicate and recast the relationship between theological categories and modern political thought.     

Historians and Political Scientists: Observations on Presidential Studies

Absenteeism on roll call votes in the U.S. House decreased just prior to events of the early 1970s, thus suggesting that the two events are related. Changes during the early 1970s increased the number, the visibility and the pubic accessibility of recorded legislator's decisions. With relevant political actors having easier access to more legislator's decisions, lawmakers have less room to deviate from what they perceive to be the electorally tenable position. While good roll call attendance rates are now the norm, this is even more so in cases of high visibility votes, i.e., conflictual votes and votes of stated presidential concern. Nonetheless, the use of strategic absenteeism by politically conflicted, southern Democrats seems to endure.