Overview

Recent presidents have exploited the power of the American presidency more fully than their predecessors—and with greater consequence than the framers of the Constitution anticipated. This book, in the tradition of Arthur Schlesinger's great work The Imperial Presidency (1973), explores how American presidents—especially those of the past three decades—have increased the power of the presidency at the expense of democracy. Matthew Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg provide a fascinating history of this trend, showing that the expansion of presidential power dates back over one hundred years. Presidential Power also looks beyond the president's actions in the realm of foreign policy to consider other, more hidden, means that presidents have used to institutionalize the power of the executive branch.

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9780393064889

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Reviews

The increasing authority of the president and the consequent imbalance of power threaten democracy, say Crenson and Ginsberg (both Political Science/Johns Hopkins Univ.). Their book, which includes more than 40 pages of endnotes, is addressed to readers concerned with the political health of America and remains generally nonpartisan. The authors view the shift in balance as a crime and frame their argument using terms familiar to watchers of TV cop shows: motive, means, opportunity. An opening chapter provides outlines; the remaining ones examine factors more closely. Crenson and Ginsberg note numerous historical changes in the US method of selecting presidents. The early ones were Revolutionary heroes of several sorts; then powerful political parties emerged, and candidates became party animals; only fairly recently have we seen highly ambitious candidates use the mass media and the primary system to attract the spotlight. The authors describe an ever-expanding executive branch and the weapons at a president's disposal: vetoes, executive orders, signing statements, regulations. Today's presidents, they aver, possess a capacity for unilateral action unforeseen in the Constitution. Crenson and Ginsberg take a long look at the president's increasing ability to make war, a power the Constitution specifically assigns to Congress. Near the end, they offer analyses of the decline of congressional power and the recent tendency of federal courts to support the executive branch when it scrapes against the legislative house. One reason they discern is that most federal judges used to have a legislative background; today, fewer than five percent do. As the authors demonstrate, the courts have consistently upheld the initiatives of the executive branch in matters of foreign policy and war and national emergency. They marvel at an apparent paradox: Even as a president's popularity plummets, his power increases.A comprehensive, judicious and even alarming view of a constitutional crisis. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Matthew Crenson is professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins University. Benjamin Ginsberg is the David Bernstein Professor of Political Science, Director of the Washington Center for the Study of American Government, and Chair of the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author or coauthor of 20 books including Presidential Power: Unchecked and Unbalanced, Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public, Politics by Other Means, The Consequences of Consent, and The Captive Public. Before joining the Hopkins faculty in 1992, Ginsberg was Professor of Government at Cornell University. His most recent book is The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters. Ginsberg’s published research focuses on political development, presidential politics, participation, and money in politics.

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