Presidential Power

•      Institutional Sources of Presidential Power

–  Powers enumerated in Constitution

•      Behavioral or Individual Sources of Presidential Power

–  Power of Persuasion- Neustadt

–  Importance of Personality- Barber

–  Going Public- Kernell

 

Institutional Sources of Presidential Power

•      Chief of State (symbolic/ceremonial roles)

•      Chief Executive (appointment power, control over executive branch/executing laws)

•      Commander-in-Chief

•      Chief Diplomat

•      Chief Legislator (recommending legislation, executive orders, veto/signing legislation)

 

Individual Sources of Presidential Power

•      Power of Persuasion

–  Richard Neustadt - Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents

•      Importance of Personality

–  James Barber – Presidential Character

•      “Going Public”

–  Samuel Kernell – Going Public

 

Neustadt and Presidential Power

•      Way to persuade is to convince members of Congress that what the W.H. wants of them is what they ought to do for their own sake and on their authority

•      Power of persuasion is the power to bargain

•      Key is a bargaining game

 

 

Neustadt Continued

•      All of the players have different advantages:

•      President- status of office, public standing (if high), veto, appointments, budget

•      Bureaucracy- since also beholden to Congress, will not necessarily go along with what Executive wants

•      Congress- hold purse strings, approve appointments

•      Public- only important in approval of President and to prove that the actor cares about an issue

 

Barber – Presidential Character

•      Personality plays an important role in shaping presidential behavior

•      Will affect whether president has persuasion powers

•      Two Important dimensions:

–  Active/Passive- Energy towards Government or what Government should do

–  Negative/Positive- How feel about the job

 

Barber - Typology of 4 Types

•      Active-Positive

–  High self esteem, oriented towards results, adaptive

–  Examples- Kennedy, Truman, and FDR

•      Active-Negative

–  Intense effort with low emotional reward, motivated by personal ambition-

–  Examples- Johnson and Nixon

 

Barber - Typology of 4 Types

•             Passive-Positive

–          Try to please others, compliant with decisions by others

–          Example- Reagan

•             Passive-Negative

–          Minimal Performance, low self esteem, work out of sense of duty

–          Example- Washington, Eisenhower?

•             Where would we place Clinton or George W. Bush?

 

 

Kernell – Going Public

•      Definition

–  Strategy of appealing to the public to get Congress to do what the President Wants

•      Examples

–  Clinton and Health Care Reform

–  George W. Bush and the Homeland Security Bill

•      Evidence for its Importance

–  Public addresses, travel, speeches

 

Going Public vs. Bargaining

•      Why does Going public violate bargaining model?

–  Rarely includes the kind of exchanges in bargaining theory

–  No benefits to members from complying with the President- only costs if don’t comply

–  Entails public posturing- makes compromise difficult

–  Undermines the legitimacy of other politicians

 

Why Growth of Going Public?

•      Growth of the welfare state

–  Constituencies outside of D.C.

•      Modern Communications

–  President in News everyday

–  Easier to mobilize public opinion

•      Decline of Political Parties- Divided Government

–  Hard to bargain with individual members, especially if different party

 

 

 

 

 

Implications of Going Public

•      Congress will only listen if the President has high levels of approval (50% at least)

•      Constant Campaign to Sway Voters

•      Every White House since Carter has had an in-house pollster

–  Constantly track public approval of President and opinion over the issues

 

Evaluation of Theories of Presidential Power

•      Presidents clearly have institutional power

–  However, the use of these powers have varied over time

•      Most political scientists think that Barber’s “presidential character/personality” measure is no good

•      Going public vs. Bargaining