How Conservatives Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Presidential Power

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian E. Zelizer
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
American Conservatism ◽  
Richard Nixon ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines how conservatives have come to embrace presidential power after an initial wariness. Before the 1970s, there were some conservative activists skeptical of—if not downright hostile toward—presidential power. A key turning point was the 1970s, when many conservatives believed that the congressional reforms that were passed in the aftermath of Watergate weakened the power of the executive branch and were a symbol of what went wrong as a result of the 1960s. The chapter first considers how the conservatives began to accept presidential power during the presidency of Richard Nixon between 1969 and 1974 before discussing congressional reforms in the area of national security. It also discusses the use of executive power under Ronald Reagan, who strengthened the marriage between American conservatism and presidential power; Bill Clinton; and George W. Bush, who expanded presidential power in his war on terrorism.

Part Three The Separation of Powers, 9 The President: Problems of Executive Overreach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Espinosa Manuel José Cepeda ◽  
Landau David
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
National Security ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Executive Discretion ◽  
Historical Role

As in much of Latin America, the Colombian president has historically been extremely powerful. The 1991 constitutional designers sought to achieve greater balance in the separation of powers, in part by weakening presidential power. This chapter considers the Court’s attempts to limit executive discretion and protect against excessive amalgamations of executive power. Even in areas where presidents have historically enjoyed almost plenary power, such as national security, the Court has attempted to place limits on presidential power. Most significant in this regard is the Court’s aggressive and successful jurisprudence limiting presidential use of states of exception. The Court has imposed jurisprudential criteria limiting states of exception to true and unexpected social and political crises, thus greatly reducing its historical role in day-to-day Colombian life and forcing political institutions to confront most problems under a situation of normality.

The Executive Power

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
András Sajó ◽  
Renáta Uitz
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
Regulatory State ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Parliamentary Systems ◽  
The Will

This chapter examines the self-perpetuation of the executive branch. Since constitutions usually concentrate on the position and powers of the chief executive, they feed the mistaken impression that the executive branch is synonymous with the will of a single president or prime minister. In reality, executive power in a modern regulatory state is not a one-man show. The chapter provides an overview of where the executive branch comes from before discussing the origins and scope of presidential power. It then considers the role of cabinets, councils, and prime ministers in parliamentary systems, along with the confidence mechanism that serves as the lifeline between the legislature and the executive (cabinet). It also explores the responsibility and accountability of the executive branch, and considers measures aimed at limiting the powers of the executive within the constitutional framework.

Low Unemployment + Low Inflation

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-112
Author(s):  
Frank Stricker
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
Women Immigrants ◽  
Baby Boomers ◽  
Federal Reserve ◽  
Oil Prices ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
High Unemployment ◽  
Richard Nixon

The labor force ballooned as more women, immigrants, and baby boomers sought work. Plant shutdowns were common and corporations “downsized” work forces. Real wages began a long decline. Owing to spending on Vietnam and soaring oil prices, inflation surged. Richard Nixon tried government wage-and-price controls and then recession and high unemployment. But inflation stayed up. This was “stagflation.” Some authorities decided that recessions had to be harsher. The Paul Volcker-Ronald Reagan recession of 1981 reduced inflation but eliminated millions of good jobs. Unemployment never fell below 5 percent. Unemployment did not fall below 5 percent before a new recession, which occurred during the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Most economists believed that low inflation required permanently high unemployment; their view was labeled NAIRU—the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment. The late 1990s were a surprise. Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan and President Bill Clinton helped to bring low inflation and low unemployment at the same time. Real wages increased more than at any time since the early ’70s.

Control over Executive Branch Information: Who “Judges”?

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (03) ◽  
pp. 498-504
Author(s):  
Nancy Kassop
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
The Other ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Constitutional Interpretation ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press

You may be forgiven if you associate Lou Fisher's name primarily with his robust defense of Congress's preeminent authority in national security and budgetary matters, or with the idea that courts are only one of three co-equal players in the constitutional dialogue that occurs among all of the branches, or with the related effort to disabuse scholars, the press, and the public of the profoundly incorrect notion that courts have “the last word” in constitutional interpretation. All of these themes are, indeed, key components of Fisher's vast body of scholarly work and public testimony, and they will be forever linked to him as their progenitor. Just as solidly grounded in impeccable research and unassailable logic is Fisher's work on executive power. It fits snugly within his Madisonian emphasis on a government of limited and shared powers, enforced through effective checks and balances, where each institution exercises its respective power while overseeing the other branches to ensure respect for constitutional boundaries.

Death of the Statesman as Tragic Hero: Hans Morgenthau on the Vietnam War

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas B. Klusmeyer
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
Greater Good ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
National Security State ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

In Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (1946), Hans Morgenthau celebrated the noble role of the statesman, whose tragic destiny entailed accepting the agonizing moral burden of committing lesser evils as the inescapable price for securing the greater good. In this elitist vision, the statesman is primarily accountable to personal conscience rather than to the poorly informed, undisciplined judgment of any democratic electorate. In focusing on the statesman's pivotal role, Morgenthau glossed over the ways the New Deal and the Second World War had transformed the institutional context within which American presidents made foreign policy. As he shifted his attention to American policy toward Vietnam in the late 1950s and the 1960s, however, his view of presidential leadership and the executive branch changed significantly. Morgenthau came to see the growth of the national security state and the unaccountable exercise of executive power as a twin threat to the foundations of republican government. His critique emphasized the pathologies of policymaking insulated within this state apparatus. He learned that one problem with the lesser-evil approach is that the moral distinctions on which it is predicated are relative and contingent in practice: that which was once proscribed from the policymaker's toolbox can readily become the prescribed instrument after the justifying precedent has been established.

Presidential Privilege and the Freedom of Information Act

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Baron
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Freedom Of Information Act ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Government Secrecy

Executive privilege (EP) as a political tool has created a grey area of constitutional power between the legislative and executive branches. By focusing on the post-WWII political usage of executive privilege, this research utilizes a social learning perspective to examine the power dynamics between Congress and the president when it comes to government secrecy and public information. Social learning provides the framework to understand how the Cold War's creation of the modern American security state led to a paradigm shift in the executive branch. This shift altered the politics of the presidency and impacted relations with Congress through extensive use of EP and denial of congressional requests for information. When viewed through a social learning lens, the institutional politics surrounding the development of the Freedom of Information Act is intricately entwined with EP as a political power struggle of action-reaction between the executive and legislative branches. Using extensive archival research, this historical analysis examines the politics surrounding the modern use of executive privilege from Truman through Nixon as an action-reaction of checks on power from the president and Congress, where each learns and responds based on the others previous actions. The use of executive privilege led to the Freedom of Information Act showing how policy can serve as a congressional check on executive power, and how the politics surrounding this issue influence contemporary politics.

Protestants and American Conservatism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillis J. Harp
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
American Conservatism ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
The Family ◽  
Conservative Beliefs ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S

Protestant beliefs have made several significant contributions to conservatism, both in the more abstract realm of ideas and in the arena of political positions or practical policies. First, they have sacralized the established social order, valued and defended customary hierarchies; they have discouraged revolt or rebellion; they have prompted Protestants to view the state as an active moral agent of divine origin; and they have stressed the importance of community life and mediating institutions such as the family and the church and occasionally provided a modest check on an individualistic and competitive impulse. Second, certain shared tenets facilitated this conjunction of Protestantism and conservatism, most often when substantial change loomed. For example, common concerns of the two dovetailed when revivals challenged the religious status quo during the colonial Great Awakening, when secession and rebellion threatened federal authority during the Civil War, when a new type of conservatism emerged, and dismissed the older sort as paternalistic, when the Great Depression opened the door to a more intrusive state, when atheist communism challenged American individualism, and, finally, when the cultural changes of the 1960s undermined traditional notions of the family and gender roles. Third, certain Christian ideas and assumptions have, at their best, served to heighten or ennoble conservative discourse, sometimes raising it above merely partisan or pragmatic concerns. Protestantism added a moral and religious weight to conservative beliefs and helped soften the harshness of an acquisitive, sometimes cutthroat, economic order.

Covert Action: United States Law in Substance, Process, and Practice

2010 ◽  
pp. 586-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Baker
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
The Third ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Traditional Activity ◽  
The U.S

This article discusses covert action within the context of the U.S. law. The first section describes the main elements of the U.S. legal regime, including the definition of covert action and the “traditional activity” exceptions, the elements of a covert action finding, and the thresholds and requirements for congressional notification. The second section describes some of the significant limitations on the conduct of covert action. The third section discusses the nature of executive branch legal practice in this area of the law. And the last section draws conclusions about the role of national security law within the context of covert action.

II. Policy Formulation for National Security

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 534-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney W. Souers
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Security ◽  
Economic Effect ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
World War ◽  
War Aims ◽  
Military Campaign

The National Security Council, created by the National Security Act of 1947, is the instrument through which the President obtains the collective advice of the appropriate officials of the executive branch concerning the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security. An outline of the genesis of this new governmental agency will indicate in part its present rôle.Even before World War II, a few far-sighted men were seeking for a means of correlating our foreign policy with our military and economic capabilities. During the war, as military operations began to have an increasing political and economic effect, the pressure for such a correlation increased. It became apparent that the conduct of the war involved more than a purely military campaign to defeat the enemy's armed forces. Questions arose of war aims, of occupational policies, of relations with governments-in-exile and former enemy states, of the postwar international situation with its implications for our security, and of complicated international machinery.

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