Presidential Involvement Research Articles

Presidents Abroad: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy

A president’s most precious commodity is time, and nowhere is this scarcity more apparent than with respect to international travel. Personal presidential involvement in diplomatic relations has proven to yield significant benefits, and yet traveling to engage in face-to-face diplomacy is often prohibitively expensive for American executives in time and attention. Given such restrictions, when and where do presidents choose to travel? We use a data set of more than 750 presidential trips spanning more than one hundred countries and a century of history to investigate the domestic and international factors influencing when, where, and for what reason presidents are likely to travel abroad. We provide a detailed examination of presidential travel over time and find that domestic political contexts influence presidential propensities to travel consistent with expectations based on allocating time and attention as limited resources.

Congress's Agency Coordination

Coordination is a mechanism for administrative control. Indeed, it is well-known that the President and agencies themselves initiate it for a variety of substantive and self-interested reasons. This Article is the first to establish that Congress also creates frameworks of interagency coordination, and it bases this contention in the largest collection to date of statutes and legislative history detailing coordination requirements for federal agencies in several regulatory areas across the executive branch. By uncovering coordination legislation, which fosters an unexamined but pervasive relationship between Congress and agencies, this Article contributes to the fundamental debate regarding which political branch has sovereignty over the administrative state. Comprehensive analysis of this original legislative dataset illustrates that statute-based administrative coordination compels agencies to engage autonomously to more effectively further legislative priorities across the executive branch. This layered dynamic is evidenced by the main qualities of most coordination legislation: first, that it is both hierarchical and expansive, thus empowering agencies favored by Congress to structure coordination with significant discretion; and second, that it is mandatory, thus giving the legislature ultimate control over the implementation of statute-based interagency coordination. Coordination legislation may be driven by many of the same incentives that motivate the President’s initiation of administrative coordination, as well as some that are unique to the legislature, including the goal of limiting politicized executive influence on agencies’ implementation of the law. In general, the goals of statute-based coordination would benefit from the incubation of agency autonomy. Accordingly, this Article argues, coordination legislation empowers agencies to interact independently — that is, without direction from the President. For this reason, however, coordination legislation also challenges our expectations of executive hierarchy. More specifically, coordination legislation may muddy lines of executive accountability and imbue executive agencies with several qualities of independent regulatory commissions that increase their insulation from the Executive. Therefore, statute-based coordination has the potential to interfere with the President’s role as administrator-in-chief, unless it is circumscribed by executive oversight or, better still for legislative purposes, ex ante presidential involvement in interagency coordination.

The role of the executive in Russian budget formation

The article provides an examination of the role of Russia’s dual (semi-presidential) executive in the budget process. The Constitution gives the president a strategic role, leaving operational budget formation to the ‘government’, chaired by the prime minister, whereas the common view of Russian policy making is of the president’s ‘hands-on management’. The article looks at how the president engages in the budget process, and whether, on the one hand, excessive ‘hands-on’ presidential involvement leads to a disrupted policy process, or, on the other hand, it breaks down the inter-agency deadlocks that are common in Russian policy making. The conclusion is that a reasonable balance is found between the two.

The President during the so-called Second Republic: from veto player to first in command?

The role of the head of state in parliamentary democracies is not taken into consideration by Lijphart even though it can be decisive when representative institutions are unstable or unable to make decisions. In the Italian case in particular, the President can become both a powerful veto player for the government and a sort of deputy chairman. From Scalfaro to Napolitano, presidents have had a great impact on the political scene, especially when governments and parties have seemed weak. So far, scholars have debated the systemic features that have caused the expansion of presidential powers, but there have been few attempts to consider presidential involvement in the decision-making process as an aspect of the questionable change from one model of democracy to the other. This article explains why the presidency can be considered as an institution in tension between the consensual and the majoritarian poles.

Perceptions of College and University Presidents Regarding Tobacco-Free Campus Policies

Objective: To identify college presidents’ support for tobacco-free campus policies (TFCP), perceived barriers and benefits to implementing such policies, and activities that might initiate policy adoption. Participants: Participants were 405 presidents (51% of 796 delivered surveys) from a national sample of eligible 4-year institutions in summer 2012. Methods: A 4-page, 24-item cross-sectional questionnaire was mailed to potential participants in 4 waves to maximize the response rate. Results: The vast majority of presidents support TFCP (84%) and believed they should play a key role in establishing TFCP (80%). A majority agreed advocacy by campus groups was necessary to establishing TFCP. Presidents with an existing policy were twice as likely to believe advocacy was necessary for policy establishment. Presidents most commonly selected creating policy drafts and designating a committee as important to initiating TFCP. Conclusion: Advocates would benefit from focusing on presidential involvement and solutions to personnel barriers in establishing TFCP.

Impeachment and presidential politics in new democracies

Research on presidentialism has long assumed that presidential impeachment is a rare event, made difficult by design in order to enhance government stability. However, the experience of Third Wave democracies suggests that more presidents have been targets of impeachment attempts than the literature might lead us to expect. In this article I seek to identify the factors that make directly elected presidents more or less vulnerable to impeachment attempts in Third Wave presidential democracies from 1974 to 2003. I find several factors that mobilize deputies against the president: presidential involvement in political scandal, strong presidential powers, and a hostile civil society. Presidents are more likely to fend off such efforts when their party commands a higher share of seats. I also find that popular protest against a president helps to prompt a congressional impeachment drive. Frequent efforts to resolve presidential crises via such legal procedures may explain in part why extra-constitutional means of conflict resolution have become a less attractive option in new democracies.

Justice Kagan's Presidential Administration and Bioengeneered Foods: Making the Case for Congressional Guidance as a Check to Presidential Policy Setting

Imagine a system of government where the President is accorded a great deal of deference in matters of legislation. A combination of these two elements - “president and legislation” - immediately gives us cause for pause, considering our deliberate tripartite system of checks and balances. Imagine also the advancement of a completely new technology, like cloning. As industry works to perfect the new technology, the question inevitably becomes who is best placed to regulate this industry. As we explore our options, should one of the options be for the Office of the President to set regulations? These are the questions that areas, such as biotechnology, faces or will face. As biotechnology has evolved, the public has become increasingly concerned that processes for approving bio-tech foods are not transparent. The power to approve biotech foods is delegated to administrative agencies, which receive considerable deference from the courts. Added to this judicial deference is the documented involvement of the President's office in setting policy in this area. Justice Kagan labeled Presidential involvement in administrative agencies' decisions as “Presidential Administration.” “Presidential Administration,” according to Justice Kagan, refers to the President directly setting policies by providing directives to administrative agencies. Tracing this practice from President Reagan to President Clinton, Justice Kagan explains that presidents have regularly used the administrative process to set policies as well as take ownership of administrative policies. This Article explores the issues inherent in presidential control of administrative regulatory processes related to genetically modified foods. In that context, especially, congressional silence is unsatisfactory because it unevenly shifts the balance of power to influential interest groups and to the President's office. This awkward balancing has been made all the more evident by Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seeds Farms, the Supreme Court's first decision regarding genetically altered crops. Monsanto and other cases illustrate the legal and ethical complexities of balancing of the public's interest with that of biotech companies and monitoring federal agencies. Thus far, the balancing of interests has erred in favor of biotech companies. The standards applied by the courts for evaluating biotech foods are insufficient and vague. What is more, the procedures in place for overseeing and regulating biotech products are needlessly complex and inefficient. This Article points out deficiencies in the regulation of bioengineered foods and demonstrates that regulating agencies have sponsored a policy that fails to concentrate on the potential harm to human health; rather, the policy focuses on market aggrandizement. The “substantial equivalence” doctrine applied by regulating agencies when evaluating bioengineered products is under particular scrutiny in this Article. Under the substantial equivalence test, bioengineered products have been assumed to be safe by virtue of the initial presidential command, construing bioengineered foods as equivalent to natural foods. This standard, however, is a false equivalence since bioengineered products contain foreign and unknown agents. Continued practice of this type of Presidential control, without consistent input from experts, could lead to greater harm to the population. Considering the high stakes, a more precautionary standard is warranted.Accordingly, this article is divided into the following parts: Part I discusses the application of the Presidential ad-ministration doctrine to biotechnology; it identifies the flaws with that particular approach and explains why a better approach is needed. Part II outlines the sources of laws and the agencies responsible for regulating genetically altered foods. Part III discusses the Supreme Court's first ruling regarding genetically modified crops in Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seeds Farms as an example of the conflicts congressional silence creates. Part IV discusses problems with the current judicial standard of review applied to agencies' decisions. Part V explores the detrimental impact of biotechnology on poor farmers, both in the United States and abroad. Part VI proposes better paradigms for dealing with bioengineered foods and calls for specific congressional guidance in that area. Finally, Part VII presents the European approach as a potential model for grassroots lobbying.

The Transformative Twelfth Amendment

This paper argues that the Twelfth Amendment represents far more than a mechanical adjustment of the electoral college. Rather, it is the constitutional text that gives us the political presidency that we know today. The Twelfth Amendment worked a major structural change in the relationship between the legislative and executive branches and for that reason bears directly on the debate over the unitary executive and the meaning of “executive power.” Specifically, presidential removal power is best justified not by the original Article II, but by the constitutional structure the Twelfth Amendment created. And the scope and definition of executive power more broadly is best fixed by reference to the political character of the presidency the Twelfth Amendment constitutionalized. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the executive designed at Philadelphia was not a political office, but rather an apolitical administrator standing above partisan conflict. The office was not designed as a political policymaker or representative of the people. The Twelfth Amendment changed this. It quite deliberately converted the electoral college into a form of public election and in so doing, linked the presidency to popular majorities. The Amendment facilitated political competition for the office, unified the executive branch internally, and distanced it politically from Congress. The result was to give the executive a democratic warrant to take political action. This in turn changed the available scope, and perhaps the meaning, of the President’s “executive powers.” The new constitutional structure the Twelfth Amendment created indicates the President must have political control over the policymaking apparatus of the executive branch, and thus the power to remove principal officers, including heads of independent agencies. This structure also justifies significant presidential involvement in agency rulemaking, and may help more generally to fix the bounds of the President’s “executive powers.”

Missing Links in the President's Evolution on Same-Sex Marriage

The President is correct that marriage historically has been the province of the states. But that fact hardly insulates state marriage laws from equal protection challenges, as Loving v. Virginia makes clear. And that makes sense, for the Fourteenth Amendment reaches all state laws, regardless of their subject matters. Specifically, modern judicial doctrine “federalize[s]” and makes “a national issue” of the question of same-sex marriage, at least insofar as it subjects all state laws to some level of equal protection scrutiny. This fact about modern constitutional doctrine leaves the constitutional law professor-turned-President on the horns of a dilemma. He cannot simultaneously conclude that DOMA is unconstitutional under existing equal protection doctrine and yet also imagine that the states may constitutionally refuse to permit or recognize same-sex marriage. If federal laws should be subject to heightened scrutiny when they treat same-sex marriage differently from heterosexual marriage, then so must state laws that deny recognition for, or bar, same-sex marriages. Moreover, it is almost certain that the heightened scrutiny the President favors would lead to the wholesale invalidation of those state laws. In other words, the Obama Administration’s argument against DOMA, if applied to state laws, should generate nationwide uniformity. Each and every state will have to recognize same-sex marriages, at least so long as they recognize opposite-sex marriages. The President’s constitutional contortions cast doubt on the wisdom of a scheme where the Chief Executive may make independent constitutional determinations and act upon them, including declining to defend the constitutionality of certain federal laws. However much this critique may be true as applied to President Obama and same-sex marriage, one should not expect perfection from Presidents. This is not to excuse the President’s same-sex marriage contortions. It is only meant to suggest that when it comes to constitutional interpretation, each of us lives in a glass house. However imperfect any particular President might be, the institutional design question is whether the system of constitutional defense works best with the presidency actively defending the Constitution. If the system is better with active presidential involvement, as a supplement to judicial review and other protective mechanisms, it does not matter much that presidential defense measures, by themselves, are imperfect.

U.S. Presidents and Their Roles in Emergency Management and Disaster Policy 1950‐2009

AbstractThis paper attempts both to rate the quality and breadth of presidential involvement in emergency management, as well as to examine the possible reasons for the differing quality. Using three major factors for evaluation, it is possible to review the presidential records from the second half of the twentieth century to today, and derive broad categorical assessments using a holistic methodology. The major factors are the ability and willingness to appropriately distinguish the needs and priorities of disaster management apart from civil defense needs and priorities, the selection of well‐qualified disaster management leaders with a background in natural and accidental disasters, and the quality of implementation of programs including administrative execution, number and level of presidential disaster declarations, and timely presidential involvement in catastrophes. Using this framework, two presidents emerged as excellent, three as good, four as average, and two as poor. Interestingly, while some presidents learned from previous executive types of experiences, others did not. While some presidents learned from major catastrophes (focusing events) that occurred just before or during their administrations, others were hard‐pressed simply to recover from especially disruptive or new disasters and failed to improve the system as a result. A consistent finding is that the performance of presidents in emergency management has had a growing effect on their overall reputations by the public and experts. Before 1950, presidential roles were extremely modest and expectations almost nonexistent. After Truman and through Regan, roles increased substantially and expectations were modest. From Clinton through Obama, the roles have continued to increase and expectations have become exceedingly high.

Stonewalling and Suspicion during Presidential Scandals

Scholars possess little theoretical understanding of how presidents behave during scandals. Existing presidential scholarship has focused on “offensive” communication, aimed at achieving legislative or policy goals, whereas the authors’ interest is in “defensive” communication. Using a game-theoretic signaling model of the president–media relationship, the authors identify conditions affecting White House stonewalling and media feeding frenzies. The president’s optimal behavior changes depending on circumstances, particularly the level of presidential involvement in the alleged misdeeds. The authors illustrate this with a case study of the Iran-Contra scandals and an empirical analysis of scandals from the Nixon through the Bush administrations.

Leadership Under Stress: Presidential Roles in Emergency and Crisis Management in the United States

This paper attempts both to rate the quality and breadth of presidential involvement in emergency management, as well as to examine the possible reasons for the differing quality. Using three major factors for evaluation, it is possible to review the presidential records from the second half of the twentieth century to today, and derive broad categorical assessments using a holistic methodology. While some presidents learned from major catastrophes (focusing events) that occurred just before or during their administrations, others were hard-pressed simply to recover from especially disruptive or new disasters and failed to improve the system as a result. During his campaign President Obama had indicated a preference to elevate FEMA again, but it remains to be seen if he will have time to deal with this issue in the first half of his administration.

Exorcising Scandal in the White House: Presidential Polling in Times of Crisis

Several important works have addressed the issue of scandal in the White House; however, no study has used internal White House archival polling data to explore the phenomenon of presidential recovery from scandal. In this research note, we expand the analysis of presidential polling and connect these internal procedures to times of scandal in the White House across two presidents and three scandals. We identify four questions the White House is concerned with (through the polling) and we suggest polling is uniquely helpful in identifying answers to these questions that gauge the depth of presidential involvement, the ability of the president to continue to govern, the importance of the scandal to the public, and the fairness of the media.

Prime ministers’ identity in semi‐presidential regimes: Constitutional norms and cabinet formation outcomes

Abstract. This article examines how presidential involvement in the cabinet formation process affects cabinet formation outcomes in the semi‐presidential regimes of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It analyzes whether the formal distribution of appointment‐dismissal powers allows for the development of useful indicators for predicting a prime minister's location on the continuum between the ideal points of the president and the legislature. First, to derive theoretical expectations about a prime minister's identity in the different types of semi‐presidential regimes, the article discusses constitutional variation in the formal distribution of cabinet appointment‐dismissal powers across semi‐presidential constitutions. Second, the empirical outcomes of cabinet formation are then compared with the theoretical predictions. Empirical tests, while providing substantial support for the hypothesized effect of variation in cabinet appointment‐dismissal powers, indicate the importance of other variables. Qualitative and quantitative differences in the character of the party system and the nature of the electoral cycle also have a systematic effect on cabinet formation outcomes.

The Ties That Bind: Presidential Involvement with the Development of NCAA Division I Initial Eligibility Legislation

The Ties That Bind: Presidential Involvement with the Development of NCAA Division I Initial Eligibility Legislation

The Presidency, the Bureaucracy, and Reinvention: A Gentle Plea for Chaos1

The relative influences of the unique and traditional elements of the Clinton‐Gore National Performance Review (NPR) episode of bureaucratic reform are examined here as a means of exploring the underlying dynamics of executive‐bureaucratic relationships. The first section of the article outlines the reinvention theory underlying NPR. This is followed by an analysis of how NPR deviated from that theory. The third section of the article considers what reforms might have been proposed by NPR had it taken reinvention theory more seriously. And fourth, the author discusses the deeper problems of presidential implementation of any reform not founded on enhanced hierarchical control of the bureaucracy by the White House. Finally, a unidirectional cycle of presidential reform is described, a cycle that seems impervious to and unconnected with scholarly work on management.

The 1992 Regulatory Moratorium: Did It Make a Difference?

History of Presidential Involvement in Rulemaking Since the Roosevelt administration and the recommendations of the Brownlow Commission, presidents have attempted to assert more control over regulatory agencies. Although in the past the appointment power was a mechanism used by presidents to oversee agencies, it has not provided an adequate amount of control over many agency actions. Bureaucratic advantages such as knowledge, history, and seniority put the chief executive at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the large executive branch. Moe (1985a) states that presidents began to combat this by strengthening the institutional presidency, which consists of the White House, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other executive offices (e.g., Council of Economic Advisors). Recent research posits that the president can rely more on the loyalty of these inner parts of the executive branch than the individual cabinet level agencies. Moves by the Reagan administration to politicize the bureaucracy by placing loyal soldiers in many positions was another mechanism to assert control (Moe, 1985a). Many of these mechanisms were an attempt to control the bureaucracy. The issuing of regulations may be the most important function of many agencies because these regulations constitute the setting of policy and the development of law. During the 1970s, presidents imposed procedural constraints on rulemaking, such as requiring inflation-impact statements and environmental-impact statements, to facilitate closer review of regulation development by the White House. The Carter administration first formalized presidential regulatory review with Executive Order 12044. Executive Order 12044 dealt with general policy goals and criteria, the agencies' internal regulatory procedures, regulatory analysis (specifically for major regulations with an impact of over $100 million), and the review of existing regulations. The Regulatory Analysis Review Group (RARG), made up of representatives of OMB, the Council of Economic Advisors, several cabinet departments, and other White House offices, had the responsibility for implementing this order and coordinating interagency review. Executive Order 12044 met with some success in getting agencies to conduct more detailed analysis of regulatory actions (Tolchin and Tolchin, 1983). But, this order was only the beginning of the more active assault on regulations that occurred during the Reagan administration. Presidential involvement in regulation came to the forefront of policy making during the Reagan administration (Duffy, 1993). One of President Reagan's first acts as president was the issuance of Executive Order 12291. This order did a number of things including suspending or postponing a large number of regulations issued by agencies at the end of the Carter administration, requiring agencies to publish semi-annual regulatory agendas of those actions they expected to publish, setting up the presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief to be chaired by Vice President Bush (an early precursor to the Competitiveness Council), and establishing a routine mechanism for OMB review of agency regulations. In addition, control of regulatory review was placed in the newly created Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within OMB. This office was created by the promulgation of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, enacted during the end of the Carter administration. This move by the Reagan administration basically developed a central clearinghouse for agency regulations (Benda and Levine, 1985). Probably the most important component of Executive Order 12291 was the requirement that agencies complete Regulatory Impact Analyses (RIAs) for all major regulations. The RIA had to apply cost-benefit analysis requiring the benefits of a regulation to outweigh its costs. OMB had enormous discretion in terms of these requirements and could waive them if desired. This would most likely occur if the action reduced regulatory burden. …

Technology and Politics ed. by Michael E. Kraft, Norman J. Vig

1082 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE The authors’ backgrounds allow them to address both technical and sociopolitical issues with authority (Merton Davies is an engineer and mathematician, and William Harris is an international lawyer). Some of the book’s flaws—it is overly given to generalizations and not well organized—are, perhaps, not the fault of the authors but rather the re­ sult of the protracted security review process to which the manuscript was subjected. The authors can be faulted, however, for occasionally neglecting to make use of public information that provides insight into the way RAND was linked to other government and nongovernment organizations. As one example, the authors describe the origins of RAND but fail to point out that H. Rowan Gaither, president ofthe Ford Foundation, became a founder and director of RAND when it was in­ corporated in 1948 with an interest-free loan from the Ford Founda­ tion. Gaither later chaired the presidentially appointed Security Re­ sources Panel. Information of this type is important for understanding RAND’s influence on U.S. space technology because RAND produced concepts, not hardware, and the extent to which its research findings were implemented by other organizations as operational systems de­ pended on effective linkages to policymakers. (Such linkages are being addressed by the Smithsonian-RAND History Project at the Depart­ ment of Space History, National Air and Space Museum. The project aims to produce analytical historical studies of RAND and to organize and preserve the primary sources on which they are based.) Neverthe­ less, such shortcomings are more than offset by the excellent descrip­ tions of RAND’s technical research, which make this book, at present, the single most informative source for scholars interested in RAND’s role in the origins of U.S. satellite and balloon-borne surveillance tech­ nology. Charles A. Ziegler Dr. Ziegler, a lecturer in social anthropology at Brandeis University, holds advanced degrees in both anthropology and physics and has a special interest in the relationship between technology and other elements of culture. Recent publications include a study of the development of covert nuclear surveillance systems, “Waiting for Joe-1: Decisions Leading to the Detection of Russia’s First Atomic Bomb Test” (Social Studies of Science 18 [1988]: 197-229). Technology and Politics. Edited by Michael E. Kraft and Norman J. Vig. Durham; N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988. Pp. xv + 356; figures, notes, index. $59.75 (cloth); $17.95 (paper). The thirteen contributions to this volume range widely in analytical penetration and historical awareness. Most are light on both—not inappropriate if the collection is intended for the classroom (the editors do not make this clear). Three of the chapters have appeared elsewhere, and several others summarize past or ongoing work. Thus, TECHNOLOGY AND CUL TURE Book Reviews 1083 it seems appropriate to view the book as an introduction aimed at college students. As such, I have two criticisms. The first may seem trivial but will help convey the character of the volume as a whole: most of the chapters deal with policy analysis more than politics. That is, they discuss issues involving technologyin a ratherabstractsense, with little attemptto con­ vey the manner in which the political process shapes government de­ cision making and policy itself. The exceptions make for the more sat­ isfying chapters: W. Henry Lambright and Dianne Rahm on presidential involvement in big decisions (Star Wars, the breeder reac­ tor); Allan Mazur, with a concrete and quantitative look at media in­ fluence on public perceptions and governmentactions concerningLove Canal and nuclear power. But other selections are burdened with some­ times arid discussions of topics like environmental regulation and risk analysis (and even the “science court”), while failing to dig very deeply into the ways in which interest groups use and misuse the apparatus and tools in question. Nor do many of the chapters give a sense of in­ teragencyconflicts, the ways in which policy is setat high levels in cabinet councils, or deals struck between Congress and the executive branch; to the extent that politics is the art ofcompromise, few of the selections deal with politics. By and large—and let me emphasize that there are exceptions—this book conveys a...

Organizational Imperatives

For the turbulent, uncertain world of the 1970's, with the role of the presidency in foreign affairs more limited or less visibly centrally involved, revised organizational modalities become imperative. Foreign affairs staffing of the President should be sufficient to ensure that he is immediately informed of all significant events abroad, but should avoid overcumbersome organizational layers or overintense presidential involvement. This will require the State Department to carry out fully the responsibilities envisioned in National Security Affairs Memorandum (NSAM) 341. Given certain apparently immutable characteristics of American bureaucracy, this will necessitate return of the United States Information Agency (USIA) to the Department, which will give the Secretary of State line control over all major agencies dealing primarily with foreign affairs. It will be necessary to relieve the Secretary's enormous burden by converting the Department's second ranking position to one in which the incumbent can act as true alter ego of the Secretary; by creating a new position of Permanent Under Secretary as the third ranking Department position, where lines of policy and management can converge effectively; and by staffing other high-level positions with individuals capable of making the decisions required by the 1970's. The new President can further strengthen the State Department by giving his full support to the ambassador in his role of "the President's man."