Imperial presidency (original) (raw)

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Term for excessive US presidential power

This article is about the concept of imperial presidency in American politics. For its use in the analysis of South Korean politics under Park Chung Hee, see Yushin Constitution.

Imperial presidency is a term applied to the modern presidency of the United States. It became popular in the 1960s and served as the title of a 1973 book by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who wrote The Imperial Presidency to address two concerns: that the presidency was uncontrollable and that it had exceeded its constitutional limits.[1] According to professor of political science Thomas E. Cronin, author of The State of the Presidency, "imperial presidency" is a term used to define a danger to the American constitutional system by allowing presidents to create and abuse presidential prerogatives during national emergencies.[2] This was based on: (1) presidential war powers vaguely defined in the Constitution, and (2) secrecy – a system used that shielded the Presidency from the usual checks and balances afforded by the legislative and judicial branches.[2]

Until the 1930s, the president had few staff, most based in the Capitol, where the president had always maintained an office (the President's Room). The office later became used only for ceremonial occasions, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, presidents regularly operated out of the Capitol Hill office. However, Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency (1933–1945) during the Great Depression and World War II altered the previous importance of the office. The new age of electronic media, the growth of executive agencies under the New Deal, his Brain Trust advisors, and the creation of the Executive Office of the President in 1939 all marked the growth of the traditionally small presidential staff.

The post-war presidency has a large executive staff most often crowded in the West Wing (redesigned in 1934), the basement of the White House, or in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is beside the White House and used by the Departments of Defense and State. Progressive overcrowding in the West Wing led President Richard Nixon to convert the former presidential swimming pool into a press room.

Arguments for its existence

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As staff numbers increased, many people were appointed who held personal loyalty to the person serving as president and were not subject to outside approval or control.
Advisory bodies developed around the presidency, many of which complemented the main cabinet departments, which declined in influence. The National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget are prime examples.
The Senate does not "advise and consent to" appointments to the Executive Office of the President (with only a handful of exceptions), as it does with cabinet appointments. A corollary is that EOP personnel are accountable only to the President and not to Congress.
The presidency relies on implicit powers not found in the Constitution. The extent of foreign policy and war powers of the presidency are questioned. Also, the extent of presidential secrecy is questioned.
A plebiscitary presidency is accountable only during elections or impeachment, rather than daily to the Congress, the press and the public.

The presidencies of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were particularly described as surrounded by "courts" in which junior staffers acted occasionally in contravention of executive orders or Acts of Congress. Schlesinger pointed out activities of some Nixon staffers during the Watergate affair as an example. Under Reagan (1981–1989), the role of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, USMC, in the facilitation of funding to the Contras in Nicaragua, in explicit contravention of a congressional ban, was highlighted as an example of the ability to act by a "junior courtier" based on his position as a member of a large White House staff. Howard Baker, who served as Reagan's final Chief of Staff, was critical of the growth, complexity, and apparent unanswerability of the presidential "court".

Historian Zachary Karabell argued that executive power grew further in the 21st century, due in part to congressional inaction. Citing the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama as examples, he wrote: "9/11 saw the beginning of the current move toward an imperial presidency, as George W. Bush keyed off the crisis to expand executive authority in national security and domestic surveillance. In that, his administration had the legal but classified support of Congress, and for a time, a considerable portion of the public." Karabell said that this trend continued under Obama, and that "stonewalling" from Congress "provoked the Obama administration into finding innovative ways to exercise power," making Obama "one of the most powerful presidents ever." He wrote that this trend could potentially set precedent for further expansion of executive power.[3]

Karabell later argued that the first presidency of Donald Trump had the possibly unintended effect of eroding executive power, citing the rescission of the DACA immigration policy and the Trump administration's threat to use its position to withdraw from NAFTA as instances which have led to some power being returned to Congress at the executive branch's expense.[4] Nevertheless, Princeton University historians Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer argued that aspects of the imperial presidency were apparent in the Trump administration.[5]

The Executive Office of the President makes up only a minute part of the federal bureaucracy, with no institutional continuity, and the president has little influence as to the appointment of most of its members.
The organization and functioning of most of the federal government is determined by law, and the president has thus little power to reorganize it.

Alasdair Roberts argued that the concept of the imperial presidency neglects several important changes in the context of governance over the last three decades, all of which tend to restrict the president's actual power:[6]

The growth in the size and the complexity of the federal bureaucracy
A battery of post-Nixon controls on executive power, including transparency rules and "watchdog bureaucracies" such as the federal Inspectors General, a strengthened Government Accountability Office, and the Congressional Budget Office
The increased willingness of bureaucrats to protest or "blow the whistle" on policies with which they disagree, with stronger protection for whistleblowing
Changes in information and communication technologies that amplify the effect of official dissent and increase the capacity of opponents to mobilize against executive action
Declining public trust in and deference to federal authority
Declining executive discretion over the use of federal funds, which are increasingly committed to mandatory programs
Declining regulation of the private sector, as a consequence of the post-Reagan shift to neoliberal policies, economic globalization, and the growth of corporate lobbies

The "Imperiled Presidency" was a theory of former President Gerald Ford.[7] Ford argued that rather than being too powerful, the president does not have enough power to be effective. The growth in the size of the bureaucracy surrounding the president since the New Deal made the executive more difficult to control. Ford said that "a principal weakness in the presidency is the inability of the White House to maintain control over the large federal bureaucracy. There is nothing more frustrating for a President than to issue an order to a Cabinet officer, and then find that, when the order gets out in the field, it is totally mutilated."

According to Dino P. Christenson and Douglas L. Kriner, presidents have considerable leeway to act independently of Congress and the courts, but unless domestic public opinion is in their favor, unilateral action risks inciting political pushback.[8]

Usage in other countries

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The presidencies of France [9][10] and South Korea [11][12] have also been described as imperial presidencies.

Especially in South Korea, because of this, the Institute for Democracy and Diversity (V-Dem) insists that South Korea's dictatorship has been under way since Yoon Suk-yeol assumed office as president. V-Dem was based on the fact that the Yoon Seok-yeol government had taken suppressions against the opposition party.[13]

^ Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. (1973). The Imperial Presidency. Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana (Mississippi State University. Libraries). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. x. ISBN 0395177138. OCLC 704887.
^ a b Cronin, Thomas (1980). "A Resurgent Congress and the Imperial Presidency". Political Science Quarterly. 95 (2): 211. doi:10.2307/2149365. JSTOR 2149365.
^ Karabell, Zachary (April 14, 2016). "How the GOP Made Obama One of America's Most Powerful Presidents". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
^ Karabell, Zachary (October 24, 2017). "How Trump Throws Away His Own Power". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
^ Kruse, Kevin M.; Zelizer, Julian E. (January 9, 2019). "Opinion | Have We Had Enough of the Imperial Presidency Yet?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
^ Alasdair Roberts. The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government. New York: New York University Press, 2008. Chapter 9, "Beyond the Imperial Presidency."
^ Ford, Gerald R.; Nixon, Richard (November 10, 1980). "Nation: Two Ex-Presidents Assess the Job". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved April 1, 2019.
^ Christenson, Dino P.; Kriner, Douglas L. (2020). The Myth of the Imperial Presidency. University of Chicago Press. doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226704531.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-226-70436-4. S2CID 203390471.
^ "The powers of the French president: A modern-day monarch?". France 24. March 9, 2022.
^ "France election: Why is France's president the most powerful in Europe and is it a problem?". euronews.com. April 11, 2022.
^ "[Editorial] End imperial presidency". The Korea Herald. March 17, 2022.
^ "End imperial presidency". The Korea Times. April 27, 2022.
^ The Seoul Economic Daily, ed. (March 8, 2024). "V-Dem said "South Korea is changing from democratisation to dictatorship"" (in Korean).

Rudalevige, Andrew (2006). The New Imperial Presidency: renewing presidential power after Watergate. University of Michigan Press.
Healy, Gene (2009) [2008]. The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Cato Institute. ISBN 978-1933995199.
Wolfensberger, Donald R. The Return of the Imperial Presidency ? Wilson Quarterly. 26:2 (2002) pg. 37