This book looks at the relationship between Congress and the president and how this interaction shapes public policy. The relationship between the president and the Congress has been under discussion as long as the U.S. Constitution has existed. It has been a discussion in which presidents, congressional leaders, Supreme Court justices, scholars f
CHOICE 2000 Outstanding Academic Title Explaining Congressional-Presidential Relations examines government activities involving direct interactions between presidents and Congress and considers whether they are influenced by executive, legislative, and/or exogenous factors. The book encompasses presidential position taking on legislative votes, legislative support of presidents' positions, presidents' propensity to veto legislation, and budget agreement between the two branches, all of which are elements in the adoption of public policy.
The underlying theoretical premise of this text is that the separation between the executive and legislative functions has important policy consequences and has influenced legislative outcomes. The study analyzes the pattern of interaction on banking bill introductions over the past 150 years.
Annotation ." . . a happy mix of studies, approaches, and levels of analysis . . the research strategy embodied in this volume - that of commissioning experts to reconsider their subject matter in light of a given dependent variable (in this case, policy change) - is extremely valuable."--American Political Science Review
This balanced readable analysis of how the two major branches of government work together to make public policy includes 16 case studies and reflects on changes since the 9/11 attacks. The authors of this text, one a presidential scholar and the other a congressional scholar, view the two branches as coequals in policymaking. They take a "shared governance" approach and provide a policy focus, looking not only at the policy process but also evaluating policy results in the areas of foreign policy, civil rights, economic and budget policy, and social welfare. It is organized around an original framework that identifies four patterns of policymaking: presidential leadership, congressional leadership, consensus/cooperation, and deadlock/extraordinary resolution. A separate case study illustrates each of the four patterns in each of the four policy areas, serving as an integral part of the text to enhance the student's understanding. The four patterns of policymaking and the case studies comprise an effective tool for helping students understand the increasingly complex relations between Congress and the President. Two new case studies look at the Bush tax cut and the Anti-terrorist (Patriot) Act.
The premise behind this book is that policy making provides a useful perspective for studying the presidency, perhaps the most important and least understood policy-making institution in the United States. The eleven essays focus on diverse aspects of presidential policy making, providing insights on the presidency and its relationship to other policy-making actors and institutions. Major topics addressed include the environment of presidential policy making and the constraints it places on the chief executive; relationships with those outside the executive branch that are central to presidential policy making; attempts to lead the public and Congress; presidential decision making; and administration or implementation of policies in the executive branch, a topic that has received limited attention in the literature on the presidency.
