Managing the President's Program : Presidential Leadership and Legislative Policy Formulation / Andrew Rudalevige.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rudalevige, Andrew, author.

Series:

Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives ; 81

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Congress.

United States.

Political planning--United States.

Political planning.

Political leadership--United States.

Political leadership.

Presidents--United States.

Presidents.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 274 pages)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The belief that U.S. presidents' legislative policy formation has centralized over time, shifting inexorably out of the executive departments and into the White House, is shared by many who have studied the American presidency. Andrew Rudalevige argues that such a linear trend is neither at all certain nor necessary for policy promotion. In Managing the President's Program, he presents a far more complex and interesting picture of the use of presidential staff. Drawing on transaction cost theory, Rudalevige constructs a framework of "contingent centralization" to predict when presidents will use White House and/or departmental staff resources for policy formulation. He backs his assertions through an unprecedented quantitative analysis of a new data set of policy proposals covering almost fifty years of the postwar era from Truman to Clinton. Rudalevige finds that presidents are not bound by a relentless compulsion to centralize but follow a more subtle strategy of staff allocation that makes efficient use of limited bargaining resources. New items and, for example, those spanning agency jurisdictions, are most likely to be centralized; complex items follow a mixed process. The availability of expertise outside the White House diminishes centralization. However, while centralization is a management strategy appropriate for engaging the wider executive branch, it can imperil an item's fate in Congress. Thus, as this well-written book makes plain, presidential leadership hinges on hard choices as presidents seek to simultaneously manage the executive branch and attain legislative success.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE. Managing the President's Program: Necessary and Contingent Truths

CHAPTER TWO. Bargaining, Transaction Costs, and Contingent Centralization

CHAPTER THREE. The President's Program: History and Conventional Wisdom

CHAPTER FOUR. The President's Program: An Empirical Overview

CHAPTER FIVE. Putting Centralization to the Test

CHAPTER SIX. Congress Is a Whiskey Drinker: Centralization and Legislative Success

CHAPTER SEVEN. The Odds Are with the House: The Limits of Centralization

CHAPTER EIGHT. Hard Choices

Appendix: Additional Data and Alternate Specifications

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691190266

0691190267

OCLC:

1132218628