No Blank Check

From the Back Cover\nPolitical scientists have forever, assumed that ordinary people have no meaningful views about the presidency and presidential power. No longer can that assumption stand. In a masterful work, Andrew Reeves and Jon C. Rogowski have shown that not only do people hold views, expectations, and judgments of the presidency but that their opinions are highly consequential for politics. Hats off to a path-breaking piece of research!
- James L. Gibson, Washington University in St. Louis\nExecutive orders, signing statements, budget impoundment, brinksmanship - has the system of checks and balances failed? Has the United States entered the era of the imperial President Andrew Reeves and Jon C. Rogowski, two of the nation's leading scholars of American institutions, offer a careful and thorough assessment of the ability of its President to act unilaterally. The public - through its commitment to ideas embodied in the Constitution - has time and again constrained what Presidents do. The public itself, more than Congress, has preserved the American system of checks-and-balances. No Blank Check is required reading for any serious scholar or student of American politics.
- Stephen Ansolabehere, Harvard University\nA president is by far the most public politician in America. How successfully they exploit public strategies remains an unsettled question, even after several decades of active research. Into this research field, Andrew Reeves and Jon C. Rogowski offer a fresh consideration: the American public's expectations about how presidents should and should not pursue their goals. For this, No Blank Check commands our attention.
- Samuel Kernell, UC San Diego\nConcerns about unaccountable executive power have featured recurrently in political debates from the American founding to today. For many, presidents' use of unilateral power threatens American democracy. No Blank Check advances a new perspective: Instead of finding Americans apathetic towards how presidents exercise power, it shows the public is deeply concerned with core democratic values. Drawing on data from original surveys, innovative experiments, historical polls, and contexts outside the United States, the book highlights Americans' skepticism towards presidential power. This skepticism results in a public that punishes unilaterally minded presidents and the policies they pursue. By departing from existing theories of presidential power which acknowledge only institutional constraints, this timely and revealing book demonstrates the public's capacity to tame the unilateral impulses of even the most ambitious presidents. Ultimately, when it comes to exercising power, the public does not hand the president a blank check.\nBook Description\nThe most comprehensive analysis of how the public views unilateral presidential power and why they punish presidents who use it.