The Politics of Race and the Making of the Law-and-Order President

• In Event: Poster Session: European Politics and Society & Presidents and Executive Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Presidents and Executive Politics

Abstract

This forthcoming book argues within the historical institutionalists framework that law-and-order is a predominate presidential power that began with the recovery of fugitive slaves, then was redirected to protect African Americans from police brutality and racial violence and preceded the president’s efforts to combat street-level crime. To date, there has not been a systematic evaluation of law-and-order as presidential power, and this has left a significant gap in political scientists' understanding of how presidential power develops generally. This book remedies this gap by deploying a temporal analysis along with process tracing to explain how the politics of race and the politics of federalism contributed to the development of the president's power to maintain law-and-order. In sum, this book demonstrates that law-and-order is not just a campaign slogan deployed in 1968 and 2016 by Presidents Trump and Nixon, nor is it related only to street-level crime. Instead, it is a presidential power that has a history that dates to the beginning of the American republic.

Author

• Joshua L Miller, University of California San Francisco