Public Outreach,Executive Orders,and the Unilateral Presidency

Scholars have traditionally and loosely defined executive orders as presidential directives that instruct bureaucrats about how to implement policy. In contrast, proclamations are thought to be used by presidents to address policy matters regarding the general public. This has been an assumption that scholars have accepted without empirical evidence. We have long known that presidents strategically pursue policy to build support among numerous groups, such as African Americans, religious organizations, women, educators, and labor unions. Presidency scholars also know that executive orders are an expedient tool that an administration utilizes to pursue its policy agenda. As a result, why should we assume that the exclusive target population of executive orders is members of the federal bureaucracy? This is the first study to explore whether and how presidents from 1936 through 2008 use executive orders to target specific populations with policy.     

Justices Seeking the Presidency

The separation of powers in the Constitution of the United States has never been absolute in either theory or practice. This is especially true in the quest for public office. At least one President, William Howard Taft, aspired to be a Supreme Court Justice. Several Supreme Court Justices seriously considered becoming President. These are a few stories about those ambitions.     

The Presidency and the News Media

Abstract

Leo Strauss, often considered a critic of modernity, is famous for his claim that Machiavelli, in turning away from the classical tradition, is its originator. Yet his “Restatement on Xenophon's Hiero” presents a concise indictment of that tradition and a remarkably sympathetic account of the political and philosophic motives that led to the rupture. In light of this tension, Strauss's interest in Xenophon appears as a useful counterweight to both.     

Patterns of Political Support: Examining Congress and the Presidency

This paper examines political support toward Congress and the presidency. With data made available by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (1995), I extend the work of Easton and Dennis (1969), demonstrating that there are distinct patterns of political support that correspond to diffuse support and to specific support for particular branches of the national government. The findings also support the arguments of Alwin et al. (1991) and others regarding generational assessments of political institutions. In particular, older citizens base their support toward Congress on perceptions of governmental performance.     

Realignment Theory and the Modern American Presidency: A Reformulation

Realignment theory must be adapted to take account of changes that have occurred in the nature of the American presidency. The modern presidency is characterized by a direct, near-exclusive relationship with the public, through use of the mass media. This relationship has fundamentally altered the President's relationship with other political institutions and distanced presidential politics from congressional and local politics. The American party system, in other words, now encompasses a number of separate political processes that need to be approached as distinct theoretical problems. Realignment theory successfully explains much of what has taken place in one of those processes, presidential politics, over the last twenty years. But, given the immediacy of the modern President's relationship with the voting public, we should no longer expect broad shifts in the character of presidential electoral coalitions to be reflected at other levels of the American party system.     

The Reagan Presidency and the Reagan Experiment

Fred I. Greenstein, ed., The Reagan Presidency: An Early Assessment. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Pp. 196. $7.95 softbound. John L. Palmer and Isabel V. Sawhill, eds., The Reagan Experiment: An Examination of Economic and Social Policies under the Reagan Administration. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1982. Pp. xvii, 523. $29.95 hardbound; $12.95 softbound.     

The Presidency and Political Equality

When black Americans and white Americans want the president to do different things, who wins? When low-income earners prefer different government action than do middle and high-income earners, whose preferences are reflected in presidential behavior? Recent studies show that congressional behavior often most closely follows the preferences of the white and the wealthy, but we know relatively little about presidential behavior. Since the president and Congress make policy together, it is important to understand the extent of political equality in presidential behavior. We examine the degree to which presidents have provided equal representation to these groups over the past four decades. We compare the preferences of these groups for federal spending in various budget domains to presidents’ subsequent budget proposals in those domains from 1974 to 2010. Over this period, presidents’ proposals aligned more with the preferences of whites and high-income earners. However, Republican presidents are driving this overall pattern. Democratic presidents represent racial and income groups equally, but Republicans’ proposals are much more consistent with the spending preferences of whites and high-income earners. This pattern of representation reflects the composition of the president's party coalition and the spending preferences of groups within the party coalition.     

James Naughtie,The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency

Abstract

The terms "justice" and "necessity" are often employed in discussions of war. The just war tradition seeks to delineate when wars are and are not just; other theologians who do not find this approach helpful may nevertheless resort to the logic of necessity. Although unjust, some wars may still be deemed necessary. Barth employs both the language and logic of justice and necessity in his approach to war. The purpose of this paper is to address Barth's exposition of war in relation to his approach to divine justice and the necessity of Christian affliction. It does not attempt to make any large claims about the just war tradition or other approaches to war. Rather, it is intended to be an immanent critique of Barth from Barth's own theology, showing that, although consistent with his view of church and state, Barth's theology of war is inconsistent with his view of both God's character as just and the external necessity of affliction to Christian witness.     

The Eisenhower Administration: Bridge to the Institutionalized Legislative Presidency

Eisenhower's contributions to the modern presidency are primarily institutional and to some extent, stylistic: his reliance on the professionalism of civil servants in the Bureau of the Budget, his continuation of the annual programming process as well as the procedures for coordinating the executive branch's legislative role, his creation of a White House office to represent him on Capitol Hill, and his respect for Congress as a legislative body. What Eisenhower did not do is equally significant: he did not reject the model of an activist presidency, reverse the New and Fair Deal policies of his Democratic predecessors, or pursue his centrist agenda in a blatantly partisan manner. The Eisenhower experience demonstrates that incivility, inhumanity, and inanity are not inevitable consequences of divided government.