Presidential Power and Political Science

Abstract

The initial purpose of this article is to assess the enduring power of Richard E. Neustadt's 1960 book, Presidential Power. The book transformed the ways in which subsequent generations of presidential scholars thought and wrote about the presidency. It has continued to be the touchstone for scholarship. However, scholars have also qualified, modified, challenged, reformulated, and rejected Neustadt's theses. One result has been a richer literature on the presidency, which itself requires assessment.