Since the constitutional separation of powers often leads to delay or obstruction rather than coordinated policymaking, U.S. presidents are increasingly acting unilaterally to move policy. With the issuance of executive orders, signing statements, and policy memoranda, unilateralism has become a defining feature of the American presidency. Can Congress effectively use checks and balances to counter presidential unilateralism?&nbsp; Strategic Responsiveness takes a theoretically developed and empirically oriented approach- situated within legal and historical contexts-to explore the system of separated powers. The authors find that Congress is not as weak as many perceive it to be and show how members of Congress can often anticipate individualized policy loss and choose to respond. These policy struggles shape the constitutional order as surely as broad, statutory constraints might. While the aggrandizement of the presidency and the usurpation of congressional control are not countered, ordinary policy losses are. For members and senators, presidential overreach is fine as long as the policy wins keep occurring, but policy losses may motivate members to reassert congressional prerogatives in policymaking through increased oversight. Strategic Responsiveness reveals how profoundly important policy-level disputes are in the politics of maintaining a particular constitutional order.

Strategic Responsiveness: How Congress Confronts Presidential Power (Legislative Politics And Policy Making)

Politics & Social Sciences

Harward, Brian M.

Ainsworth, Scott H.

Moffett, Kenneth W.

Politics & Government

University of Michigan Press

Combining primary sources with expert commentary, this timely book probes critical moments in U.S. presidential elections in the last 20th- and early 21st-centuries, empowering readers to better understand and analyze the electoral process.
Presidential Campaigns: Documents Decoded illuminates both the high stakes of a presidential campaign and the gaffes, controversies, and excesses that often influence the outcome. With a view to enabling readers to develop skills essential to political literacy, the book examines crisis points in modern presidential elections from the early 1950s through the late 2000s.
Chronologically organized, the study focuses on key events pertinent to each election. It provides an original account of the event, such as a debate transcript or news report, as well as a discussion detailing how the issue emerged and why it was important. This unique and engaging approach enables students to experience the actual source material as voters might have. At the same time, it shows them how an expert views the material, facilitating a deeper understanding of the narratives every presidential campaign constructs around its candidates, its party, and its opponents.
 • Primary sources such as speeches, advertisements, candidate platforms, press coverage, internal campaign documents, and more are presented side by side with accessibly written, expert commentary
• A contextualizing introductory essay explains the logic behind the selection of documents and pinpoints narratives that can be traced through the collection
• Novel stories about many behind-the-scenes events will engage reader interest
• Photos, quotes, artwork, slogans, commercial stills, and other illustrative campaign media help bring history alive

Presidential Campaigns: Documents Decoded

History

Shea, Daniel M.

Americas

ABC-CLIO

This volume uses essential and illuminating primary documents as a portal for understanding the evolution and present parameters of presidential power, the relationship between America's three branches of government, and why wartime often leads presidents to claim expansive powers and authority.
Presidential Power: Documents Decoded provides a thorough examination of the historical and political context of key, critical moments in constitutional history and presidential power that makes possible opportunities for students to explore American politics in an interesting, memorable, and dynamic way. Each of the case studies reveals important dimensions of the constitutional order in the United States―and enables readers to better grasp how executive power has shifted and expanded.
The book takes specific events, people, institutions, or ideas and places them in a broader context so that readers can observe patterns and make connections among seemingly disparate happenings and concepts relating to executive power. Accompanied by explanatory sidebars, the included primary sources let students examine actual documentary evidence of key elements of executive power―for example, the presidential memorandum, the National Security cable, and the prisoner's petition―and reach their own judgment of the implications of that document for the American political system.
 • Covers topics such as Operation Pastorius, the Watergate scandal, the Iran-Contra affair, and drone strikes to show how each presented tests of presidential power
• Utilizes events and developments throughout U.S. history―from the nation's founding to the contemporary era―to demonstrate how these singular, focusing events are often reflections of broader political, economic, and social forces

Presidential Power: Documents Decoded

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