Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> American Government - Executive Branch

In this third edition, Louis Fisher updates his arguments throughout, critiques the presidential actions of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and challenges what he views as their dangerous expansion of executive power. Spanning the life of the Republic from the Revolutionary Era to the War on Terror, the...

No modern president has had as much influence on American national politics as Franklin D. Roosevelt. During FDR s administration, power shifted from states and localities to the federal government; within the federal government it shifted from Congress to the president; and internationally, it moved from Europe to the United States. All of these changes required significant effort on the part of the president, who triumphed over fierce opposition and succeeded in remaking the American political system in ways that continue to shape our politics today. Using the metaphor of the good...

Every day, coalition cabinets make policy decisions critical to international politics. Juliet Kaarbo examines the dynamics of these multiparty cabinets in parliamentary democracies in order to assess both the quality of coalition decision making and the degree to which coalitions tend to favor peaceful or military solutions. Are coalition cabinets so riddled by conflict that they cannot make foreign policy effectively, or do the multiple voices represented in the cabinet create more legitimate and imaginative responses to the international system? Do political and institutional...

Presidential earmarks? Perhaps even more so than their counterparts in Congress, presidents have the motive and the means to politicize spending for political power. But do they?

In "Presidential Pork," John Hudak explains and interprets presidential efforts to control federal spending and accumulate electoral rewards from that power.

The projects that members of Congress secure for their constituents certainly attract attention. Political pundits still chuckle about the "Bridge to Nowhere." But Hudak clearly illustrates that while Congress claims credit for earmarks and pet projects,...

The success of policy often turns on the quality of the decision-making process. Mark Schafer and Scott Crichlow identify the factors that contribute to good and bad policymaking, such as the personalities of political leaders, the structure of decision-making groups, and the nature of the exchange between participating individuals....

Washington and the world were rocked by Confront and Conceal, which goes deep into...

"The Riddle of Barack Obama: A Psychobiography" is the first complete psychological biography of President Barack Obama written by a professional clinical psychologist. Covering Obama's life to date, as well as the lives of his parents, grandparents, and other ancestors, this fascinating volume illuminates the personal, professional, political, emotional, intellectual, and creative aspects of Obama's personality, as well as the motives--conscious and unconscious--for his beliefs and actions.

Dr. Avner Falk draws on hundreds of biographies, newspaper and magazine articles, interviews,...

Conventional wisdom holds that 9/11 sounded the death knell for presidential accountability. In fact, the opposite is true. The novel powers that our post-9/11 commanders in chief assumed--endless detentions, military commissions, state secrets, broad surveillance, and more--are the culmination of a two-century expansion of presidential authority. But these new powers have been met with thousands of barely visible legal and political constraints--enforced by congressional committees, government lawyers, courts, and the media--that have transformed our unprecedentedly powerful presidency...

At his inauguration, President Barack Obama was seemingly poised to become America's strongest and most influential president since Ronald Reagan. However, President Obama's first two years in office has led to some notable surprises. What accounts for the political stability and change demonstrated by the Obama administration? Which factors shaping a presidency are structural, which are personal, and which are driven by events? How will decisions made in the first two years of the administration affect its future course? What lessons can we glean from past presidencies?

Derided by the Right as dangerous and by the Left as spineless, Barack Obama puzzles observers. In Reading Obama, James T. Kloppenberg reveals the sources of Obama's ideas and explains why his principled aversion to absolutes does not fit contemporary partisan categories. Obama's commitments to deliberation and experimentation derive from sustained engagement with American democratic thought. In a new preface, Kloppenberg explains why Obama has stuck with his commitment to compromise in the first three years of his presidency, despite the criticism it has provoked.

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