Bulletin n. 1/2012 | ||
June 2012 | ||
Andrew Rudalevige |
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The Contemporary Presidency: Executive Orders and Presidential Unilateralism | ||
in Presidential Studies Quarterly , Volume 42, Issue 1, March , 2012 , 138-160 | ||
How should we assess unilateral tactics and their contribution to presidential power in a less-than-unitary executive branch? To explore this question this article examines the provenance of nearly 300 executive orders from 1947 through 1987. Archival data show that executive orders are frequently a less-than-perfect representation of presidential preferences, despite the assumptions of recent work on unilateral power. That is, the issuance of executive orders often involves persuasion rather than simply command: it incorporates wide consultation across the executive branch and, frequently, White House ratification of what agencies wanted to do in the first place. | ||