President Obama and the Jeffersonian Tradition of Executive Power

• In Event: Executive Politics and Popular Leadership

Abstract

This paper examines President Barak Obama’s public discussions of executive power. I argue that he consistently explained his use of power according to the constitutional norms of the Jeffersonian tradition. I begin by briefly describing the historical and theoretical origins of the Jeffersonian tradition, as well as the predominant alternatives (Hamiltonianism and Stewardship). Then I turn to specific areas of Obama’s public treatment of executive power: his pre-presidential criticism of the Bush administration’s use of power, his 2011 and 2014 “We Can’t Wait” and “Year of Action” campaigns, his public justifications for the 2014 DACA order, and his explanation for foreign interventions in Syria and against ISIS. I find that while Obama consistently invokes Jeffersonian logic, his exercise of power shows some of the inherent tensions within the Jeffersonian theory of power between legalism on the one hand and, on the other hand, populist justifications that tend to subvert Congressional authority.

Author

• Mark A. Scully, Lee University