Abstract
Reviewed by: Dubi Kanengisser (dubikan@gmail.com ), independent researcher
Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 as president of the United States of America marked the beginning of what may well be the most extraordinary administration in recent US history. Trump’s surprise win, combined with his unpredictable nature and unconventional style, are bound to keep the international community on edge for the next four years. Presidential Power, by John P. Burke, professor of political science at the University of Vermont, offers an overview of the literature on the powers of the US presidency and the forces that enable or restrict it, and is therefore a timely contribution.
First and foremost, Burke’s book updates Richard E. Neustadt’s seminal Presidential Power, the first edition of which was published in 1960, and which was periodically updated by the author until its sixth and final edition in 1990. Neustadt’s book argued that the constitutional powers granted to presidents were severely limited, making chief executives who restricted themselves to them mere clerks. Instead, Neustadt emphasized the critical role of bargaining in exercising presidential power. Burke, in contrast, describes a more diverse presidential toolset. On the one hand, he examines the major influence of the so-called “inherent” powers of the presidency, ones that are supposedly implied in the Constitution. On the other hand, he also considers the soft powers that go beyond Neustadt’s concept of bargaining, namely the president’s ability to impose his will by “going public” and marshalling popular support.
In addition to describing the powers at the president’s disposal, Burke also examines theories that try to understand factors that influence the ebb and flow of presidential power and how likely presidents are to be successful. These temporal influences work in two ways. On a grand scale is the “external time” of the presidency. This is the historical context to a president’s arrival in the White House. This context can be institutional (congressional vs. presidential dominance), political (the coalitions undergirding each regime period), policy-based (the place within the policy cycle of development and implementation of the core policies of a period), ideational (pendulum swings between liberalism and conservativism), or psychological (cyclical changes in the “public mood”). However, as Burke demonstrates, the predictions of these different theories are often at odds. While historical context certainly matters, we have not yet been able to determine just how to interpret this context in order to generate reliable predictions.
On a smaller scale, we find Burke’s most original contribution to the literature in the form of the effects of the “internal time” of the presidency. Burke argues that the timing of an action within a president’s two terms in office is critical to understanding what he can reasonably achieve with his various powers. The key message from Burke’s review of this internal time is the crucial importance of hitting the ground running when entering office, and achieving key legislation before the first midterm elections. While the first two years of a president’s second term may inject the administration with renewed vigour, this period of time is still less likely to result in significant achievements. The final two years of each term, either focused on re-election or spent as a “lame duck,” are even less likely to yield an enduring legacy, especially if such a legacy was not established early in the presidency.
Burke appears to have given little thought to the effects of the short-term external context on the internal rhythms of presidential time. For example, while he places much stock in the initial slowness of the Clinton administration to explain its failure to reform healthcare, he fails to consider the effects of the Black Hawk Down debacle on Clinton’s ability to “go public” and use his popularity to shore up support for the plan. In effect, the localized historical context cut short Clinton’s honeymoon period. If, as Burke readily concedes, history matters, surely it is not only the grand secular trends that matter, but also the small random fluctuations of luck and happenstance.
This caveat aside, Burke’s Presidential Power provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of the approaches available for trying to understand the actions, successes, and failures of US presidents. Based, as Burke notes, on his own courses on the subject, his study is accessible both to those well versed in US politics, and to the uninitiated seeking much-needed historical context within which to place the Trump presidency.
In this sense, the timing of the book is fortuitous. That said, faced with a president who has already rewritten the playbook on how to run a successful presidential campaign, Burke’s study confronts a pressing and potentially devastating challenge to its ability to predict and interpret reality. If the book survives the next four years with its main arguments intact, it will be a testament to its enduring value.