Presidential Power

1
Presidential Power

• Richard Neustadt and the Shape of the
  Contemporary Presidency

2
The Rise of the Modern Presidency Has Accompanied
the Rise of the Neutral Administrative State

• What is a neutral administrative state?
• What are its origins?
• What are its consequences?

3
What does the term neutral administrative state
mean to you?

• Heres how Franklin Roosevelt put it

4
Clearly all this calls for a reappraisal of
values. Our task is not discovery or
exploitation of natural resources or necessarily
producing new goods. It is the soberer and less
dramatic business of administering resources and
plants already in hand, of seeking to reestablish
foreign markets for our surplus production, of
meeting the problem of under consumption, of
adjusting production to consumption, of
distributing wealth and products more equitably,
of adapting existing economic organizations to
the service of the people. The day of
enlightened administration has come. FDR,
Commonwealth Club Address, 1932
5
Reasons for its growth

• Belief in scientific management
• Decline of political parties as service agencies
• Depression and call for economic intervention
• Entitlement programs that create rights beyond
  the reach of partisan politics

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More reasons for the administrative state

• Cold War
• Acts of Congress.

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We hold this truth to be self-evidentthat the
test of representative government is its ability
to promote the safety and happiness of the
people. Democratic Party Platform, 1936
8
Richard Neustadts Presidential Power (1961 and
1991)

• Outlined the kind of presidency that fulfilled
  the premises of the neutral administrative state
• Was immensely influential in the study of the
  presidency and
• Provided important insights into the connections
  among personality, situation, and role
  expectations surrounding the presidency.

9
What is power?

• Neustadt begins by accepting Robert Dahls
  definition of power As ability to get B to do
  something he ordinarily would not do.
• In Neustadts translation Dahls definition would
  look something like

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When one man shares authority with another, but
does not gain or lose his job upon the others
whim, his willingness to act upon the urging of
the other turns on whether he conceives the
action right for him (340).
11
In the end,

• Presidential power is the power to persuade and
  the power to persuade is the power to bargain.

12
The chart
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Why does Neustadt say that?

• Federal operation spill across dividing lines on
  organization charts almost every policy
  entangles many agencies almost every program
  calls for interagency coloration. Everything
  somehow involves the president (342).
• Think Homeland Security, Education, Health Care,
  Environmental Protection, Nutrition

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But operating agencies owe their existence least
of all to one anotherand only in some part to
him president (342).

• Different statutory bases
• Different committees and subcommittees to
  satisfy and
• Own peculiar set of clients, friends, and
  enemies outside the formal government (342).

15
Neustadts Assessment of Some Modern Presidents

• Lauds his feel for power, his connection to his
  times and his stance under pressure
• Cool, courteous, collected, and tense
• Style emphasized personal command post,
  deliberate reaching down for details, hard
  questioning of the alternatives, a drive to
  protect his options from foreclosure, and a close
  watch on follow-through

16
Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Kept too aloof
• Liked things to go smoothly
• Confidence highest when the felt he was not
  pursuing his own personal advantage
• Sought national unity, not power
• Didnt guard his power stakes.

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Harry S. Truman

• Saw no inter-relationship between decisions or
  among scraps of information
• Man who had a job to do
• Lack of bureaucratic feel
• Confidence came from perception of President as
  the man-in-charge
• President is the embodiment of history apart from
  himself

18
James Earl Carter

• No sharp events for dramatizing his many programs
• No ability to read a TV text
• No record in the minds of people but his own
  startling emergence from obscurity

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The Advantages and Disadvantages of His Model
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Advantages of Neustadts Model

• An unseen perspective on the presidency
• Understanding that presidential power is
  cumulative and reducible
• Understanding of the importance of personality
• Power is fragile, uncertain, and depends on
  perceptions of others
• No one decision will be determinative
• Does a good job of indicating the
  non-institutional and informal bases of
  presidential power

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The Disadvantages of His Model

• Are command and persuasion the full range of
  influence alternatives
• Is command really so unworkable
• Neglects identification as a power base
• Those the president might want to influence may
  be susceptible to other than instrumental appeals
• Are there presidential requests that are acted on
  without bargaining and without commanding (i.e.
  appeals to internalized values).

22
Disadvantages of the Model

• Its not a lot of help in choosing presidents.
  Vantage points are the same for all and events
  and conditions are unpredictable. All were left
  with is experience and personality.
• Is this a workable set of rules for presidential
  conduct? His prescriptions are universalistic.
  All presidential behavior is bargaining behavior
  that needs to follow specific rules. Cant this
  lead to overload and breakdown? Isnt it too
  costly in terms of resources? Must he also
  bargain and cant bargaining costs be reduced?

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Some Other Disadvantages

• There is nothing mystical about the presidential
  perspective. What is unique is the composition
  rather than the constituent elements.
• Are pressure-packed decisions the kind presidents
  make the most often?
• Does the president always have to make a
  decision?
• Is there any utility to a non-dynamic president?
• Is a president constantly involved in controversy
  the best man for all situations?

24
What About the Theoretical Framework? The Nexus
Between Personality and Policy.

• The President and Deliberative Democracy An
  exercise in elemental representation
• Expectations The President and existential
  representation