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Power of the us president essay a level
Power of the American president
Power of the American president
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While relationship between the legislative, executive and judiciary largely remained the same, the public perception of President’s place in system has changed (Jeffrey Tulis, 1990). In the twentieth century, a strong executive emerged and was institutionalized in American national politics. Even though the framers anticipated that Congress would be the predominant branch of government, contemporary presidents wield formidable formal and informal resources of governance. As a result, the public expectations of presidents have grown and created a gap between expectations and formal powers. In an attempt to explain presidential power and its limits, four major often conflicting theories of presidential power has emerged in the last four decades. To Neustadt, “presidential power is the power to persuade” (Nuestadt, 11). Persuasion and bargaining are the means that presidents use to influence policy. Presidents need to “bargain” to influence both Congress and the executive branch. Neustadt argues that presidents cannot lead directly. In other words, just because a president says he wants something done does not mean it will be so. Instead, presidential power is function of his or her ability to persuade relevant Washington actors (staff, congressmen, bureaucrats) that it is in their interest to cooperate. In short, powerful, or successful, presidents are those that can bargain effectively with relevant actors. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) being the best example of a successful Howell’s theory of unilateral action describes a more isolated president. But this does not mean that his insistence on unilateral presidential action is not valid or does not provide us with a valuable model for analyzing presidential power. Howell is certainly right in pointing that Congressional oversight is made more difficult by the multiplication of the unilateral tools the President can use to alter policies. The criticism stems from the fact that his book’s title seems to give the impression that his theory comes as an irreconcilable alternative to Neustadt’s version of presidential power of “persuasiveness”. Alternatively, Neustadt’s theory suffers from an institutional level analysis. Skrownek (1991) in his book, “The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton” have suggested that there are clear patterns of contextual circumstances that may explain the variation in presidential leadership. While not denying a role of personal attributes he clearly demonstrated that personal contributions of presidents cannot be truly understood without an appreciation of the institutional contexts in which they operate (Skrownek
Through Paul Quirk’s three presidency models that are self-reliant, minimalist, and strategic competence, we learn that there are three models that show us how the presidents use one of them to implement in the term of their presidency (POLS510 Lesson). According to Paul Quirk’s definitions about these three models, each and every president would be easily classified because of their governing style, such as being self-reliant that a president knows everything and is confident what to do and how to act, being minimalist that a president does not need to understand every and each political events and activities what’s going around homeland and world, and the president’s secretaries would take care of everything, and being strategic competence
Skowornek writes, “these presidents each set out to retrieve from a far distant, even mythic, past fundamental values that they claim had been lost in the indulgences of the received order, In this way, the order-shattering and order-affirming impulses of the presidency in politics became mutually reinforcing.” (Skowornek, 37, book). These presidents are in the best position not because they are exceptional at their job but because the time they came into office offered them the elasticity and authority to make new orders and be welcomed by the public because he is taking the country out of its troubles and challenges.
Examining the conceptualizations and theories of Neustadt and Skowronek’s in comparative perspective, this essay makes the principal argument that both of these theories only represent partial explanations of how success and efficiency is achieved in the context of the Presidency. With Neustadt focusing saliently on the President’s micro-level elite interactions and with Skowronek adopting a far more populist and public opinion-based framework, both only serve to explain some atomistic facets of the Presidency. As such, neither is truly collectively exhaustive, or mutually exclusive of the other, in accounting for the facets of the Presidency in either a modern day or historical analytical framework. Rather, they can best be viewed as complementary theories germane to explaining different facets of the Presidency, and the different strengths and weaknesses of specific Administrations throughout history.
The U.S. president is a person deemed to be the most fitting person to lead this country through thick and thin. It’s been such a successful method that it has led to 43 individual men being put in charge of running this country. However, this doesn’t mean that each one has been good or hasn’t had an issue they couldn’t resolve when in office. But no matter what, each one has left a very unique imprint on the history and evolution of this nation. However when two are compared against one another, some rather surprising similarities may be found. Even better, is what happens when two presidents are compared and they are from the same political party but separated by a large numbers of years between them. In doing this, not only do we see the difference between the two but the interesting evolution of political idea in one party.
It is obvious the president was not given enough power under the Constitution. This is in part because Article II of the Constitution was written in a short period of time with little thought. Many presidents have had to make unclear decisions with little information about the circumstance in the Constitution and the president is beginning to take over the government due to increasing implied powers. However the president’s power has recently proven that it has outgrown the constitution and is swiftly evolving. The Constitution gave the president broad but vague powers, including the authorization to appoint judges and other officials with the Senate’s consent, veto bills, lead the military as commander and chief and make sure “that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Many of these powers however are shared with the Legislative Branch, and cause conflict within the government.
... in office and how the congress will act toward the President; whether he be a President that demands respect or one who forfeits it and whether the Congress gives in to the demands of the Executive or if the Congress comes down on t he Executive like a hammer on a nail. This can be accomplished by viewing the circumstances in which a President takes office, the manner in which he carries himself during his term, and the way in which the President leaves as Commander in Chief. Conclusion: The President has neither gained nor lost power. There exists the same balance between Executive and Congress as there was when Washington was sworn in as America's first President. The only difference between then and now, is the fact that today we must wade through the layers of insignificance and precedents that history has forged against us, the political thinker and historian.
The division of power is one of the most often cited principles of our constitutional system. For example, in terms of foreign policy, the Senate must provide advice and consent to the president when making treaties and appointments. Conversely, the constitution grants Congress the authority to declare war and provide the military funding while the President acts as the commander in chief of the armed forces. This sharing of power creates friction between the executive and legislative branches when they are in disagreement and “is an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy”.
The times have changed for the Executive Branch. In the past, the president simply acted as the Constitution's errand boy. He could only follow it, and had no freedom to actually do anything but follow it. Thus, the president’s role was not efficient. As time passed, this restraint grew weaker and weaker. People decided that the president’s responsibility is to represent and serve the people.The enumerated powers would hold the president back from representing the people’s wishes. With the use of vested powers, presidents gained the ability to fix many problems not relating to some of the Constitution’s laws. As this transition occured, modern presidency appeared. For the president now acts as the main figure of the government, and bears the responsibility of the nation himself.
transparency in the president’s constitutional objections, reservations, and assertions of power. Manuscript submitted for publication, School of Law, UCLA, Retrieved from http://www.uclalawreview.org/wordpress/?p=339
The most important phase that Neustadt argues about the presidency and presidents is the persuasion power. He writes that the president cannot simply command “do this, do that”, as we all know “nothing will happen”. Different branches of the government have different constituencies and different interests. To make things happen, the president must use his bargaining skill to persuade others. Neustadt, to back his view gives a historical prove in which president Truman,
Understanding and evaluating presidents’ performance often poses challenges for political experts. The nation votes one president at the time and each presidency faces different tests. The environments surrounding a presidency have a tremendous impact on the success and failure of that presidency. In addition, the president exercises his power through a check and balance system embody in the Constitution. As stated in (Collier 1959), the Constitution created a government of “separated institutions sharing power.” As a result, a president works with others institutions of the government to shape the nation’s agenda. Thus, determining a presidential performance becomes difficult, especially when it comes to comparing the performance among presidencies.
Presidential power has become a hot topic in the media the in recent years. There has been extensive debate about what a president should be able to do, especially without the involvement of Congress and the American people. While this debate has become more publicized since the Bush administration, similar issues of presidential power date back to Truman and the Korean War. As with much of the structure of the U.S. government, the powers of the president are constantly evolving with the times and the executives.
To explain, the president has little control with regard to current events and policy making, his wishes are ignored, and his hands are tied. With such circumstances, the president’s desires are viewed as, just that, desires, rather than commands. Unless of course he holds the power of persuasion. In order to reach political power and presidential achievement, the president must persuade other political actors his interests are theirs (Howell 243). Howell counter argues Neustadt, explaining the president exerts influence not by the power of persuasion, but by his unilateral powers. “The president can make all kinds of public policies without the formal consent of Congress”. The unilateral powers emerge from institutional advantages such as the structure, resources, and location within the system of separated powers. (Howell 246-247). By that Howell means, the president’s power does not derive from persuasion, but from simply being the
Richard E. Neustadt, the author of Presidential Power, addresses the politics of leadership and how the citizens of the United States rate the performance of the president's term. We measure his leadership by saying that he is either "weak or "strong" and Neustadt argues that we have the right to do so, because his office has become the focal point of politics and policy in our political system. Neustadt brings to light three main points: how we measure the president, his strategy of presidential influence, and how to study them both. Today we deal with the President himself and his influence on government action. The president now includes about 2000 men and women, the president is only one of them, but his performance can not be measured without focusing on himself.
Several aspects of the executive branch give the presidency political power. The president’s biggest constitutional power is the power of the veto (Romance, July 27). This is a power over Congress, allowing the president to stop an act of Congress in its tracks. Two things limit the impact of this power, however. First, the veto is simply a big “NO” aimed at Congress, making it largely a negative power as opposed to a constructive power (July 27). This means that the presidential veto, while still quite potent even by its mere threat, is fundamentally a reactive force rather than an active force. Second, the presidential veto can be overturned by two-thirds of the House of Representatives and Senate (Landy and Milkis, 289). This means that the veto doesn’t even necessarily hav...