Reviews of Books:With the Stroke of the Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power Kenneth R. Mayer

The president of the United States is commonly thought to wield extraordinary personal power through the issuance of executive orders. In fact, the vast majority of such orders are proposed by federal agencies and shaped by negotiations that span the executive branch. This book provides the first comprehensive look at how presidential directives are written — and by whom. The book examines more than five hundred executive orders from the 1930s to today — as well as more than two hundred others negotiated but never issued — shedding vital new light on the multilateral process of drafting supposedly unilateral directives. The book draws on a wealth of archival evidence from the Office of Management and Budget and presidential libraries as well as original interviews to show how the crafting of orders requires widespread consultation and compromise with a formidable bureaucracy. It explains the key role of management in the presidential skill set, detailing how bureaucratic resistance can stall and even prevent actions the chief executive desires, and how presidents must bargain with the bureaucracy even when they seek to act unilaterally. Challenging popular conceptions about the scope of presidential power, the book reveals how the executive branch holds the power to both enact and constrain the president's will.

Download Full-text

Headlining Presidential Power: New York Times Front-Page Coverage of Executive Orders from Truman through Clinton

The Unilateral Presidency and the News Media ◽

10.1057/9781137387899_2 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 19-38

Author(s):

Mark Major

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York Times ◽

Front Page ◽

Presidential Power ◽

Executive Orders

Download Full-text

The Politics of Executive Orders: Legislative Constraints on Presidential Power

Political Research Quarterly ◽

10.1177/106591299905200405 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 52 (4) ◽

pp. 767-783 ◽

Cited By ~ 64

Author(s):

Christopher J. Deering ◽

Forrest Maltzman

Keyword(s):

Presidential Power ◽

Executive Orders

Download Full-text

With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power. Kenneth R. Mayer

The Journal of Politics ◽

10.1086/jop.64.2.2691882 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 64 (2) ◽

pp. 686-688

Author(s):

Karen M. Hult

Keyword(s):

Presidential Power ◽

Executive Orders

Download Full-text

Lower Court Checks on Supreme Court Power

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1952072 ◽

1959 ◽

Vol 53 (4) ◽

pp. 1017-1031 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Walter F. Murphy

Keyword(s):

Presidential Power ◽

Department Heads ◽

Lower Court ◽

Executive Orders ◽

White House ◽

The Public ◽

Political Rivalry ◽

Merit System ◽

Political Groups ◽

Special Competence

Practicing politicians as well as students of politics have long recognized the check on presidential power imposed by the federal administrative machinery. High policy must be interpreted; it can sometimes be changed or even frustrated by the bureaucrats who apply laws and executive orders. Officials down the line have interests, loyalties, and ambitions which go beyond and often clash with the allegiance accorded a given tenant of the White House. Each bureaucrat has his own ideas about proper public policy, particularly in his field of special competence. If a career civil servant, he may identify only partially, if at all, the good of the governmental service, not to say the good of the public, with the ends sought by the Administration. And if he owes his appointment or promotion to other sources than the merit system, he may find a positive conflict between his loyalties to the President and to other politicians or political groups.This conflict can occur at all administrative levels. Cabinet members may make up the President's official family, but some of them are at times his chief rivals for power within his own political party, or, more often, representatives of those rivals. Or the department heads may be so split with sibling political rivalry among themselves that common loyalty to their nominal leader may be subordinated to other values. An observer has lately written: “The conditions which a system of fragmented power sets for the success and the survival of a Cabinet officer encourage him to consolidate his own nexus of power and compel him to operate with a degree of independence from the President.”

Download Full-text