Politics of the Unilateral Presidency

Session Submission Type: In-Person Created Panel

Session Description

How do presidents utilize their powers of the pen to unilaterally implement public policy? Lowande and Goehring ask whether the public poses an effective check on unilateral power. Using both panel survey data and a dataset of unilateral actions form 1993-2018, Lowande and Goehring find that presidents pay no net cost for acting unilaterally and, on balance, news stories provide positive coverage of unilateral actions and assign credit for actions at their announcement, suggesting that unilateral presidential action is a credit-claiming device that is most often unrestrained by public opinion. Rudalevige and Yu examine Trump’s use of executive orders and other unilateral directives as vehicles for public outreach. Analyzing the substance of text in unilateral directives, identifying the kinds of constituencies they sought to appeal to or appease, and comparing across presidential administrations, Rudalevige and Yu assess whether the Trump years represent an aberration in or an evolution of the presidency. Ainsworth, Harward, and Moffett explore congressional responses to presidential unilateral actions in defense-related bills. Using data across three presidencies from 1997-2016, Ainsworth, Harward, and Moffett find that Congress still responds with increased oversight to the president’s disaggregation of policy, with the Senate’s greater attention to oversight (as compared to the House’s) fits with standard presentations of defense policymaking. Because unilateral directives can be unilaterally reversed at any time, Foster asks why do some executive orders persist? Using a formal model, Foster shows that executive orders persist when policy stemming from an order may alter the power of constituent groups, thereby influencing future interactions over the policy space and when the order may force an awkward trade-off for a future president, who may have to choose between perpetuating policy or revealing misaligned policy preferences to constituents.

Sub Unit

• Division 23: Presidents and Executive Politics

Chair

• Brandon Rottinghaus University of Houston

Discussants

• Lawrence S. Rothenberg University of Rochester

• Brandon Rottinghaus University of Houston

Individual Presentations

• Behavioral Foundations of Presidential Accountability - Kenneth Lowande, University of Michigan; Benjamin Goehring, University of Michigan

• Making Public “Policy”: Executive Orders as Outreach in the Trump Years - Andrew C. Rudalevige, Bowdoin College; Victoria E. Yu, Harvard Law School

• Congressional Responses to Presidents' Unilateral Actions in Defense Policy - Scott H. Ainsworth, University of Georgia; Brian M. Harward, Allegheny College; Ken Moffett, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

• The Politics Precedents Make: Executive Order Persistence - David Robert Foster, University of California, Berkeley