Vice-Presidential Power Advice and Influence in the White House. By Paul C. Light. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. Pp. 278. $19.95.)

The preceding study by Byron W. Daynes and Glen Sussman is valuable in that it points to the complexity of trade and of trade legislation, highlighting the role of presidential fast-track authority within that process. Unfortunately, the authors overstate the case for the waxing of presidential power, choosing to view the evolving relationship as a zero-sum game. The reality is that major trade deals such as those in which fast-track authority is utilized are so complex and politically sensitive that the White House and Congress must work together to achieve success. The evolving relationship is one of managed conflict, not open hostility. The fast-track mechanism does constitute a major change in the relationship between the legislative and executive branches, as the authors document, but change does not automatically mean that the executive is sacking the legislative.

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Unleashing Presidential Power: The Politics of Pets in the White House

Political Science and Politics ◽

10.1017/s1049096512000297 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 45 (03) ◽

pp. 395-400 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Forrest Maltzman ◽

James H. Lebovic ◽

Elizabeth N. Saunders ◽

Emma Furth

Keyword(s):

Primary Source ◽

Economic Hardship ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Statistical Evidence ◽

Presidential Power ◽

White House ◽

Multimethod Approach ◽

Power Center ◽

Source Materials ◽

Shed Light

AbstractIn this article, we use a multimethod approach to shed light on the strategic use of presidential pets. We draw on primary source materials to demonstrate that pets are an important power center in the White House. Then we turn to presidents' strategic use of their pets in public. We present a theoretical framework and statistical evidence to explore the conditions under which presidents are most likely to trot out their four-legged friends. We show that presidents carefully gauge the best and worst times to conduct a dog and pony show. In times of war or scandal, dogs are welcome public companions, but not so in periods of economic hardship.

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American presidents in polarized D.C.: From Barack Obama to Joe Biden

Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University International relations ◽

10.21638/spbu06.2021.305 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 334-347

Author(s):

Victoria Yu. Zhuravleva ◽

Keyword(s):

Political Process ◽

Political Polarization ◽

Legislative Process ◽

Presidential Power ◽

Left Wing ◽

Donald Trump ◽

American Presidency ◽

White House ◽

Political Reality ◽

Legislative Initiative

In 1960 one of the leading researchers of the American Presidency, professor and an adviser to a number of US presidents Richard Neustadt formulated the iconic formula where presidential power needed to cooperate with the Congress — persuade, negotiate and compromise. But since political reality has changed so deeply, today only a God gifted negotiator is able to fulfill its power in polarized Washington, D.C. A modern day president should be a legislator and a showman rolled into one to succeed in his mission. According to the Constitution, the American legislative process is based on the consensus between all participants, while both the President and the Congress have the power of legislative initiative. It is the president who is responsible for gaining this consensus between all the initiators. In time of political polarization parties which traditionally had been the facilitators of this way to compromise became the main obstacles. From the presidential ticket to the Congress, they turned out to be the main headache of the president. Joe Biden came to White House with a reputation of being a skilled compromiser. But while it has been his advantage with the electorate, the left wing of his party strongly opposes his centrist ideology. Donald Trump named himself a brilliant deal maker, but his business experience of making deals appeared to be irrelevant in polarized D.C. Why has it turned out to be so hard to bring a consensus to today’s political process? Will Biden be able to change this trend and reunite the Nation as he promised during his inauguration?

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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.”

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Introduction

Funding Feminism ◽

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469634692.003.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Joan Marie Johnson

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Bryn Mawr ◽

Woman Suffrage ◽

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽

White House ◽

Suffrage Movement ◽

Johns Hopkins University ◽

Institute Of Technology ◽

Political Economic ◽

Woman Suffrage Movement

Women are learning something men have traditionally understood: money provides access. —Karen D. Stone Philanthropy lies at the heart of women’s history. —Kathleen D. McCarthy Over the first six decades of the twentieth century, Katharine Dexter McCormick wrote checks totaling millions of dollars to advance political, economic, and personal freedom and independence for women. She gave her time and money to the woman suffrage movement, funded a dormitory for women at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to encourage women’s education in science, and almost single-handedly financed the development of the birth control pill. McCormick opposed the militant tactics of some suffragists—such as picketing the White House—which were bankrolled by another woman, Alva Belmont, a southerner who stunned New York society when she divorced William K. Vanderbilt, inheritor of the Vanderbilt fortune. With her flair for the dramatic, Belmont brought crucial publicity to the woman suffrage movement and wielded power with her money, giving tens of thousands of dollars to the national suffrage associations under certain conditions—for example, that organization offices be moved; that she be given a leadership position; and, later, that the movement focus on international women’s rights. Mary Garrett, another generous supporter of the suffrage movement, also understood the coercive power of philanthropy, paying the salary of the dean at Bryn Mawr College—but only if that dean was her partner, M. Carey Thomas—and orchestrating a half-million-dollar gift to Johns Hopkins University to open a medical school, with the condition that the school admit women. These monied women, and many like them, understood that their money gave them clout in society at a time when most women held little power....

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