Imperial presidency

Last updated November 07, 2024

Imperial presidency is a term applied to the modern presidency of the United States. It became popular in the 1960s and served as the title of a 1973 book by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who wrote The Imperial Presidency to address two concerns: that the presidency was uncontrollable and that it had exceeded its constitutional limits.^[1] According to professor of political science Thomas E. Cronin, author of The State of the Presidency, "imperial presidency" is a term used to define a danger to the American constitutional system by allowing presidents to create and abuse presidential prerogatives during national emergencies.^[2] This was based on: (1) presidential war powers vaguely defined in the Constitution, and (2) secrecy – a system used that shielded the Presidency from the usual checks and balances afforded by the legislative and judicial branches.^[2]

History

Until the 1930s, the president had few staff, most based in the Capitol, where the president had always maintained an office (the President's Room). The office later became used only for ceremonial occasions, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, presidents regularly operated out of the Capitol Hill office. However, Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency (1933–1945) during the Great Depression and World War II altered the previous importance of the office. The new age of electronic media, the growth of executive agencies under the New Deal, his Brain Trust advisors, and the creation of the Executive Office of the President in 1939 all marked the growth of the traditionally small presidential staff.

The post-war presidency has a large executive staff most often crowded in the West Wing (redesigned in 1934), the basement of the White House, or in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is beside the White House and used by the Departments of Defense and State. Progressive overcrowding in the West Wing led President Richard Nixon to convert the former presidential swimming pool into a press room.

Arguments for its existence

As staff numbers increased, many people were appointed who held personal loyalty to the person serving as president and were not subject to outside approval or control.
Advisory bodies developed around the presidency, many of which complemented the main cabinet departments, which declined in influence. The National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget are prime examples.
The Senate does not "advise and consent to" appointments to the Executive Office of the President (with only a handful of exceptions), as it does with cabinet appointments. A corollary is that EOP personnel are accountable only to the President and not to Congress.
The presidency relies on implicit powers not found in the Constitution. The extent of foreign policy and war powers of the presidency are questioned. Also, the extent of presidential secrecy is questioned.
A plebiscitary presidency is accountable only during elections or impeachment, rather than daily to the Congress, the press and the public.

The presidencies of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were particularly described as surrounded by "courts" in which junior staffers acted occasionally in contravention of executive orders or Acts of Congress. Schlesinger pointed out activities of some Nixon staffers during the Watergate affair as an example. Under Reagan (1981–1989), the role of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, USMC, in the facilitation of funding to the Contras in Nicaragua, in explicit contravention of a congressional ban, was highlighted as an example of the ability to act by a "junior courtier" based on his position as a member of a large White House staff. Howard Baker, who served as Reagan's final Chief of Staff, was critical of the growth, complexity, and apparent unanswerability of the presidential "court".

Historian Zachary Karabell argued that executive power grew further in the 21st century, due in part to congressional inaction. Citing the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama as examples, he wrote: "9/11 saw the beginning of the current move toward an imperial presidency, as George W. Bush keyed off the crisis to expand executive authority in national security and domestic surveillance. In that, his administration had the legal but classified support of Congress, and for a time, a considerable portion of the public." Karabell said that this trend continued under Obama, and that "stonewalling" from Congress "provoked the Obama administration into finding innovative ways to exercise power," making Obama "one of the most powerful presidents ever." He wrote that this trend could potentially set precedent for further expansion of executive power.^[3]

Karabell later argued that the first presidency of Donald Trump had the possibly unintended effect of eroding executive power, citing the rescission of the DACA immigration policy and the Trump administration's threat to use its position to withdraw from NAFTA as instances which have led to some power being returned to Congress at the executive branch's expense.^[4] Nevertheless, Princeton University historians Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer argued that aspects of the imperial presidency were apparent in the Trump administration.^[5]

Criticisms

The Executive Office of the President makes up only a minute part of the federal bureaucracy, with no institutional continuity, and the president has little influence as to the appointment of most of its members.
The organization and functioning of most of the federal government is determined by law, and the president has thus little power to reorganize it.

Alasdair Roberts argued that the concept of the imperial presidency neglects several important changes in the context of governance over the last three decades, all of which tend to restrict the president's actual power:^[6]

The growth in the size and the complexity of the federal bureaucracy
A battery of post-Nixon controls on executive power, including transparency rules and "watchdog bureaucracies" such as the federal Inspectors General, a strengthened Government Accountability Office, and the Congressional Budget Office
The increased willingness of bureaucrats to protest or "blow the whistle" on policies with which they disagree, with stronger protection for whistleblowing
Changes in information and communication technologies that amplify the effect of official dissent and increase the capacity of opponents to mobilize against executive action
Declining public trust in and deference to federal authority
Declining executive discretion over the use of federal funds, which are increasingly committed to mandatory programs
Declining regulation of the private sector, as a consequence of the post-Reagan shift to neoliberal policies, economic globalization, and the growth of corporate lobbies

The "Imperiled Presidency" was a theory of former President Gerald Ford.^[7] Ford argued that rather than being too powerful, the president does not have enough power to be effective. The growth in the size of the bureaucracy surrounding the president since the New Deal made the executive more difficult to control. Ford said that "a principal weakness in the presidency is the inability of the White House to maintain control over the large federal bureaucracy. There is nothing more frustrating for a President than to issue an order to a Cabinet officer, and then find that, when the order gets out in the field, it is totally mutilated."

According to Dino P. Christenson and Douglas L. Kriner, presidents have considerable leeway to act independently of Congress and the courts, but unless domestic public opinion is in their favor, unilateral action risks inciting political pushback.^[8]

Usage in other countries

The presidencies of France ^[9]^[10] and South Korea ^[11]^[12] have also been described as imperial presidencies.

Especially in South Korea, because of this, the Institute for Democracy and Diversity (V-Dem) insists that South Korea's dictatorship has been under way since Yoon Suk-yeol office as president. V-Dem was based on the fact that the Yoon Seok-yeol government had taken suppressions against the opposition party.^[13]

Related Research Articles

The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest ranking office in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice president is also an officer in the legislative branch, as the president of the Senate. In this capacity, the vice president is empowered to preside over the United States Senate, but may not vote except to cast a tie-breaking vote. The vice president is indirectly elected at the same time as the president to a four-year term of office by the people of the United States through the Electoral College, but the electoral votes are cast separately for these two offices. Following the passage in 1967 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, a vacancy in the office of vice president may be filled by presidential nomination and confirmation by a majority vote in both houses of Congress.

The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution addresses issues related to presidential succession and disability.

In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of the United States Constitution gives presidents broad executive and enforcement authority to use their discretion to determine how to enforce the law or to otherwise manage the resources and staff of the executive branch. The ability to make such orders is also based on expressed or implied Acts of Congress that delegate to the president some degree of discretionary power. The vast majority of executive orders are proposed by federal agencies before being issued by the president.

The White House chief of staff is the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, a cabinet position in the federal government of the United States.

Executive privilege is the right of the president of the United States and other members of the executive branch to maintain confidential communications under certain circumstances within the executive branch and to resist some subpoenas and other oversight by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of particular information or personnel relating to those confidential communications. The right comes into effect when revealing the information would impair governmental functions. Neither executive privilege nor the oversight power of Congress is explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution. However, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that executive privilege and congressional oversight each are a consequence of the doctrine of the separation of powers, derived from the supremacy of each branch in its area of constitutional activity.

In political studies, surveys have been conducted in order to construct historical rankings of the success of the presidents of the United States. Ranking systems are usually based on surveys of academic historians and political scientists or popular opinion. The scholarly rankings focus on presidential achievements, leadership qualities, failures, and faults. Popular-opinion polls typically focus on recent or well-known presidents.

The powers of the president of the United States include those explicitly granted by Article II of the United States Constitution as well as those granted by Acts of Congress, implied powers, and also a great deal of soft power that is attached to the presidency.

A speechwriter is a person who is hired to prepare and write speeches that will be delivered by another person. Speechwriters are employed by many senior-level elected officials and executives in the government and private sectors. They can also be employed to write for weddings and other social occasions.

In American law, the unitary executive theory is a Constitutional law theory according to which the President of the United States has sole authority over the executive branch. It is "an expansive interpretation of presidential power that aims to centralize greater control over the government in the White House". The theory often comes up in jurisprudential disagreements about the president's ability to remove employees within the executive branch; transparency and access to information; discretion over the implementation of new laws; and the ability to influence agencies' rule-making. There is disagreement about the doctrine's strength and scope, with more expansive versions of the theory becoming the focus of modern political debate. These expansive versions are controversial for both constitutional and practical reasons. Since the Reagan administration, the Supreme Court has embraced a stronger unitary executive, which has been championed primarily by its conservative justices, the Federalist Society, and the Heritage Foundation.

These are the references for further information regarding the history of the Republican Party in the U.S. since 1854.

Counselor to the President is a title used by high-ranking political advisors to the president of the United States and senior members of the White House Office.

The Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978, 44 U.S.C. §§ 2201–2209, is an Act of the United States Congress governing the official records of Presidents and Vice Presidents created or received after January 20, 1981, and mandating the preservation of all presidential records. Enacted November 4, 1978, the PRA changed the legal ownership of the President's official records from private to public, and established a new statutory structure under which Presidents must manage their records. The PRA was amended in 2014, to include the prohibition of sending electronic records through non-official accounts unless an official account is copied on the transmission, or a copy is forwarded to an official account shortly after creation.

<i>The Imperial Presidency</i> 1973 non-fiction book by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

The Imperial Presidency is a nonfiction book by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. It was published in 1973 by Houghton Mifflin and reissued in 2004. The book details the history of the presidency of the United States from its conception by the Founding Fathers through the latter half of the 20th century, primarily in the aspects of war powers. Schlesinger's book popularized the term imperial presidency to describe excesses of executive power. The Imperial Presidency has been described as "the most prominent school of thought on executive war powers" and "a lens through which to understand and critique the executive branch in the post-9/11 world".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidency of Jimmy Carter</span> U.S. presidential administration from 1977 to 1981

Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, took office following his narrow victory over Republican incumbent president Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. His presidency ended following his landslide defeat in the 1980 presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan, after one term in office. At age 100, he is the oldest living, longest-lived and longest-married president, and has the longest post-presidency. He is also the fourth-oldest living former state leader.

The environmental policy of the United States is a federal governmental action to regulate activities that have an environmental impact in the United States. The goal of environmental policy is to protect the environment for future generations while interfering as little as possible with the efficiency of commerce or the liberty of the people and to limit inequity in who is burdened with environmental costs. As his first official act bringing in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon signed the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law on New Year's Day, 1970. Also in the same year, America began celebrating Earth Day, which has been called "the big bang of U.S. environmental politics, launching the country on a sweeping social learning curve about ecological management never before experienced or attempted in any other nation." NEPA established a comprehensive US national environmental policy and created the requirement to prepare an environmental impact statement for "major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the environment." Author and consultant Charles H. Eccleston has called NEPA the world's "environmental Magna Carta".

The Reagan era or the Age of Reagan is a periodization of recent American history used by historians and political observers to emphasize that the conservative "Reagan Revolution" led by President Ronald Reagan in domestic and foreign policy had a lasting impact. It overlaps with what political scientists call the Sixth Party System. Definitions of the Reagan era universally include the 1980s, while more extensive definitions may also include the late 1970s, the 1990s, and even the 2000s. In his 2008 book, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008, historian and journalist Sean Wilentz argues that Reagan dominated this stretch of American history in the same way that Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal legacy dominated the four decades that preceded it.

Presidential reorganization authority is a term used to refer to a major statutory power that has sometimes been temporarily extended by the United States Congress to the President of the United States. It permits the president to divide, consolidate, abolish, or create agencies of the U.S. federal government by presidential directive, subject to limited legislative oversight. First granted in 1932, presidential reorganization authority has been extended to nine presidents on 16 separate occasions. As of 2024, it was most recently granted to Ronald Reagan.

The president of the United States is authorized by the U.S. Constitution to grant a pardon for a federal crime. The other forms of the clemency power of the president are commutation of sentence, remission of fine or restitution, and reprieve. A person may decide not to accept a pardon, in which case it does not take effect, according to a Supreme Court majority opinion in Burdick v. United States. In 2021, the 10th Circuit ruled that acceptance of a pardon does not constitute a legal confession of guilt, recognizing the Supreme Court's earlier language as authoritative.

References

↑ Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. (1973). The Imperial Presidency . Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana (Mississippi State University. Libraries). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. x. ISBN 0395177138. OCLC 704887.
1 2 Cronin, Thomas (1980). "A Resurgent Congress and the Imperial Presidency". Political Science Quarterly. 95 (2): 211. doi:10.2307/2149365. JSTOR 2149365.
↑ Karabell, Zachary (April 14, 2016). "How the GOP Made Obama One of America's Most Powerful Presidents". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
↑ Karabell, Zachary (October 24, 2017). "How Trump Throws Away His Own Power". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
↑ Kruse, Kevin M.; Zelizer, Julian E. (January 9, 2019). "Opinion | Have We Had Enough of the Imperial Presidency Yet?". The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved January 10, 2019.
↑ Alasdair Roberts. The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government. New York: New York University Press, 2008. Chapter 9, "Beyond the Imperial Presidency."
↑ Ford, Gerald R.; Nixon, Richard (November 10, 1980). "Nation: Two Ex-Presidents Assess the Job". Time. ISSN 0040-781X . Retrieved April 1, 2019.
↑ Christenson, Dino P.; Kriner, Douglas L. (2020). The Myth of the Imperial Presidency. University of Chicago Press. doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226704531.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-226-70436-4. S2CID 203390471.
↑ "The powers of the French president: A modern-day monarch?". France 24. March 9, 2022.
↑ "France election: Why is France's president the most powerful in Europe and is it a problem?". euronews.com. April 11, 2022.
↑ "[Editorial] End imperial presidency". The Korea Herald. March 17, 2022.
↑ "End imperial presidency". The Korea Times. April 27, 2022.
↑ The Seoul Economic Daily, ed. (March 8, 2024). "V-Dem said "South Korea is changing from democratisation to dictatorship"" (in Korean).