The Supreme Court, when determining how the Constitution allocates particular powers, speaks in platitudes, extolling separation as a bulwark against tyranny. But as a co-author and I have noted elsewhere, this idea is hopelessly abstract. But some of the most difficult separation of powers controversies cannot be resolved textually.
Close But what are those purposes that our governing structures ought to serve in their competition with one another? At times it seems as if Michaels believes the exercise of government power should be difficult but not too difficult. Close But there are countless ways to divide up government to prevent concentration. Even within the specific contours of the U.
To understand how to assess and calibrate these competing forms of power, we need more than a stand against concentration. We need a definition of abuse. We can imagine at least two major sorts of abuses, which happen to be in some tension with one another, further complicating the picture.
We might worry that a President will impose his ideas and preferences all the way down through the executive branch. If this were our concern, we would prioritize shoring up the civil service and perhaps reducing the number of political appointees within the system. But what exactly is the problem with such political control? Does it suggest that government is being used to advance partisan and particular interests rather than the public interest?
See id. Close or being insufficiently attentive to popular preferences. But we might be comparatively less worried about regulatory power. Close If the latter were our concerns, robust centralized and political control would form the bulk of our answer.
Scholars tend to focus on how to recalibrate the dynamics of executive governance in light of discrete abuses or mistakes, or in service of particular regulatory agendas.
By centralization, we mean concentration of power and decisionmaking in agency heads and political leadership, rather than diffusion of power through the bureaucracy. In any given struggle, the pursuit of tension will not provide a decision rule or principle to guide resolution of a controversy.
On this view, the relative strength of the different types of power should wax and wane, rather than remain in some sort of rivalrous harmony. One could read his account and conclude that he believes it should largely be insulated from control. Michaels begins by styling civil servants as counterweights to political officials the disinterested judiciary of the administrative separation of powers.
Close Civil servants can help insist that political leadership act fairly and according to law, rather than preferring their constituencies and advancing their own agendas without regard to the costs. Whereas political officials strategize with short time horizons in mind, civil servants play the long game. For his account of those threats, see id. The Loop Write for The Loop. PS Matters Digital content from across our activities and community: lectures, seminars and discussions available on demand or to stream via podcast channels.
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Funding We have a range of funding schemes to help progress individual careers and to support the wider development of the discipline. Prizes From distinguished scholars to exceptional PhD students, our prizes recognise service and achievement across the profession. Our Organisation. Charles University Information Local Organisers. Presidential Politics. Section Number:. Section Chairs. Jean Blondel European University Institute.
Section Co-Chairs. Presidents are crucial political actors. They often play a decisive role as international actors, party leaders, electoral campaigners, government members, legislative proponents, constitutional guarantors, and veto players. Moreover, the importance of presidents is growing both politically and institutionally. Even though a literature on presidents has markedly increased in the last decades Shugart and Carey ; Linz et al.
Much attention is devoted to case studies and to particular aspects of the presidential activities. Department of Justice from to Assistant Professor Daphna Renan, who served in the Obama Justice Department and whose scholarship includes a focus on executive power, says an important question—beyond the breach itself—is what reaction it provokes. Another norm that has been stress-tested is the idea of investigatory independence, says Renan.
And individual administrations have adopted specific policies and procedures to limit White House contacts with the Justice Department including the FBI about specific investigatory matters. Still, other norms have fallen away, she says.
In general, presidents were expected to share policy positions with Congress in writing. President Andrew Jackson pushed against these norms. Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson went on to shatter them by regularly engaging with the public, says Renan. Later, FDR used fireside chats to captivate a nation and persuaded the public to get behind some of his grandest policies.
The last three presidents in particular have strengthened the powers of the office through an array of strategies.
One approach that attracts particular attention—because it allows a president to act unilaterally, rather than work closely with Congress—is the issuing of executive orders. He notes that most presidents issue hundreds of them during their time in office, and few merit much notice. Obama used executive orders to expand immigration protections for immigrants who arrived in the United States as children through DACA.
But in many ways, they are just along for the ride. They will try their hardest and exploit the resources at their disposal to make an impact, but most presidents most of the time will find themselves affecting change, as political scientist George C. Daniel J. Eisenhower to George W. Bush Princeton University Press, He was a Miller Center fellow in Grant Rutherford B.
Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B.
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