Government 1540 - American Presidency Study Guide 2
Government 1540 - American Presidency Study Guide 2
Government 1540 - American Presidency Study Guide 2
I Introduction
Founding generation had a strong sense of serving posterity
Extant models: loose federations (Greek city states), Rome’s slide into corruption,
hereditary monarchies, general theme of a strong reaction against executive power
(Thomas Paine)
IV George Washington
Eschewing monarchical precedents, reluctant candidate without any sons
Precedents and Traditions:
Cabinet meetings, appear before Senate on foreign policy issues, Whiskey Rebellion,
declining to run for 3rd term
1. Neustadt's argument
a. You have to take yourself back in time to the time he wrote the book
b. Legal formalism -
c. Some may study different hats that pres wears
d. But Neustadt had no background in academia
e. He said these perspectives do not capture the essence of he
presidency as it was with Truman
f. He wanted a class that was as if you were in the preseident's office,
looking over his shoulder
i. He was there when McCarther made the decision to go to Korea
g. The firing of MacArthur -
h. Exercise of formal power, doesn't capture the essence of power
p. He defines presidential power : a president's effective influence on
outcomes
i. The grants of authority
ii. Powers do not translate into power
q. His analysis is in strategies of power, not tactics [ of getting something
through congress ]
1. He argues that power is limited
a. Doesn't dismiss constitution, or vantage points
a. But some one focuses on vantage points, do not have whole picture,
why not focus simply on the Pres powers?
a. Why? Because power is shared
a. We have separated institutions - sharing powers
a. Each of these actors approach decision from diff perspectives -
a. If pres wants to be more than chief clerk, they must bring to bear not
only their persp, they must understand others
a. Pres power becomes not the power of command
1. Bargaining of power
a. Vantage points (formal powers)
a. Professional reputation - perceptions that other washingtonians view
about the president's willingness and ability and skill to achieve his
ends,
i. Over time, these become settled
ii. The illustration he uses as someone not protecting his rep was
eisenhower
a. In Addition, president's public prestige - public opinion, it is
nuanced, rather than national
i. Standing in constituency that he is interested in
i. Why pres is tailoring speech towards the group from
which he may need support at a particular time
a. Think of it as a stool - 3 - legs
i. They need formal powers, reputation, and support
amongst those he is bargaining
1. Out side of that , the president is weak - most outcomes are driven by things
outside of the pres control
a. Every pres then must undertake office with one thing in mind, how
does my decision affect longterm ability to achieve in end
0. Analysis and critiques of neustadt's argument from three perspectives:
conceptual, empirical, normative orientation
1. Conceptual - logical argument - Presidential power isn't what Neustadt says it
is
a. The pres has a lot of power, sometimes they have enough power to do
what is necessary - ignores formal powers (Tulis)
b. Pres bush didn't bargain to hold people in guat bay - he just said that
he'd do it
a. So N underestimates the ability to rely on pres power to make
decisions
• Yet N would say, that this weakens power later on down the road
• We now know that in Gbay - the Court has stated that you can not do
that , thus eroding the president's power
• Truman made great use of pres power - he fired MacArthur - in the
immediate sense this is power, but for N , that is not enough - this
undercut Truman, and weakened him
• Critique of bargaining -
i. N bargaining ability puts them into pres overload -
i. Must delegate
• Response: those people who are delegated share different
points from the pres
• Thus you are risking when you delegate,
• there is ways to minimize that - have more than one individual
- in the case of Reagan - delegating came and bit him in the
rear
• Critique 3: Going public has replaced bargaining (cornell)
• A breakdown of protocoalitions - now everything is much more
fragmented and public
• When N wrote, hearings were outside of public, but now they
are more public
• Media -
• Reagan - passed bill only after making appeal to write to
congressmen
• Response: not enough evidence that this arg is right
Approval rating not related to outcome
• Also, those who oppose the pres can also go public
Many different forms of public - though people may say
he had ability to go public, there is an argument made
that it is much
Rather than going public, N would say r's success has to
do with bargaining
In order to get congress to pass things, reagan had to
bargain
• Institutionalized Presidency - administrative influence/unilateral action
• If you rely on your staff, you can get a lot of good things done
• N's response: Those who you delegate to, don't know your
interest - pres decision has to be viewed as a whole
In Iran's issue, R's staff, thought that he was doing R's
work - but undermined president
• N recognizes that the staff are overzealous , and do more than
what the president should do - no matter what you do, the
actions are always traced back to the president, whether he
knows about it or not
• It provides a source of excellence , but risky
• Skowronek - modern and premodern presidents - N is looking at pres
through secular time, but should be through political time - he says
that presidents take place when the existing
• Reagan has more in common with , than with Carter or HW
Bush
• It doesn't capture what we want to know about this president
• N says despite what kind of pres you are or what time the pres
is in, the pres still must have bargaining
7. Empirical Critiques
• There is nothing to test - You cant test N's argument
• There is a difficulty measuring "bargaining skill"
• N says bar skills is exercized at margins - so , that presidents are
weak,
• Decision are determined by partisanship of congress
• So, bargaining is weighted down
• SO it's difficult to measure because there are other factors
• Case studies - he illustrated his point with case studies - tried to
measure out when they wanted to bargain, and determine whether
they won
• Say how many times the president was able to pass legislation
(legilative box scores)
• We find that bargaining matters, but def not only thing that matters -
and this is only in congress, there are other times he has to bargain
• Are there particular people who make most impact in advising?
• We also have to take in particular
• N would urge caution , and if you make mistake, don't fight, let it all hang out
1. Normative Orientation
a. "Democratic" president - activist president - some one who does some
thing
b. Does he focus on a n active presidency? No
a. N says they can be powerful without doing anything or passing
anything
a. Ie. Clinton after OK bombing
a. Another critique is that it's machiavellian - ethical standards ( water
gate ) - is N responsible for Watergate?
a. N worked wit hthe assumption that people who read his book would be
experienced
a. You bargain, because the formal system around you forces you to
bargain
1. N is the dominant work in the American presidency
a. Power is weak , because the president's system of sharing power -
a. In doing so it is important that the pres learn of other points - why so
they can know his vantage point
a. In the end, there is a normative component
a. The pursue of power is good - why because N is hamiltonian
i. "pursuit of power rightly conditioned in limits , is good because
it adds energy to the system"
ii. No other actor is better situated to focus enrgy of people to
serve broader good
i. In this sense , power serves all of us
Lecture 3:
I. Introduction
- During Depression, FDR created Brownlow Commission – 3-man
commission – to assess how/if president needed help
- “the president needs help” was the conclusion
i. Needs help producing unified budget
ii. Needs administrative help
iii. Needs planning office
iv. Needs office to assist him with personnel
- (Brownlow suggested these offices be staffed by career civil servants)
- FDR did not want his staff to have public profile – “passion for
anonymity”
- 1921 – Budget and Accounting Act
- 1939 – Congress passed bill creating EOP
i. Brownlow sought BOB in EOP
ii. EOP in 1939
1. budget
2. administration
3. personnel
4. planning
EOP currently
WHO OMB NSC CEA
V. Relationships
- So what would we imagine the relationship between members of
departments/agencies and the OMB to be like??
- Because the OMB is likely to say “no” to money requests, people in
depts/agencies must seek alliances at Office of Policy Development,
because these people are in the business of generating new ideas – not in
the business of saying “no” and will likely join forces with dept/agency
reps.
-In this lecture we discuss the Staff secretary – very important determines who gets to
This lecture has a really extensive outline that gives a pretty comprehensive idea of the
subject- I am only going to include the extra notes I took
- The executive office today is very different than the founding fathers envisioned it
- The government consumes about 1/5 of our GDP, which is a phenomenon that
took hold after the FDR era
- FDR created the Bronlow Committee
o They decided to adopt the British model
o Recommended that the president should be staffed
- FDR wanted his staff to be “behind the scences”- not outspoken and in the public
eye. He wanted them to have a “passion for anonymity”
- Roughly ¾ of the entities that have been part of the executive have left- very high
turn-over
- Parts of the executive
o Office of Management and Budget: help president put budget together and
push it through congress
o Council of Economic Advisors: Advise the president on economic data
o National Security Council Staff: Advise on national security issues:
comprised of the President, VP, Sec of State and the Sec of Defense
o Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board: counter to the CIA
o Office of the U.S. Trade Representative: Important because of the WHO
and GATT which were ratified in the 1970’s
o Office of Science and Technology
o Council on environmental quality
o Office of Policy Development
o Office of Administration
o Office of National Drug Control Policy
o Office of faith-based and community initiatives
o USA Freedom Corps
1 The President and the Economy: Expectations and the Ability to Deliver – A
Mismatch?
• Nixon wanted to focus on bigger picture not details and got bored of
listening to arguments
3 Sources of Advice
• Pres reaches out to those inside and outside and engages individual
discussions with advisers
o Decrease spending
o Lower taxes
o Reduce regulation
o Slow money supply growth
8 Clinton