by Matthew Crenson, Benjamin Ginsberg
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Product Description
A new history and evaluation of the "imperial presidency."
Recent presidents have exploited the power of the American presidency more fully than their predecessors—and with greater consequence than the framers of the Constitution anticipated.
This book, in the tradition of Arthur Schlesinger's great work The Imperial Presidency (1973), explores how American presidents—especially those of the past three decades—have increased the power of the presidency at the expense of democracy. Matthew Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg provide a fascinating history of this trend, showing that the expansion of presidential power dates back over one hundred years. Presidential Power also looks beyond the president's actions in the realm of foreign policy to consider other, more hidden, means that presidents have used to institutionalize the power of the executive branch.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Presidential power is out of control, 2008-11-23
The author is right on the mark: presidential power IS unchecked and unbalanced. This is highly dangerous. Tocqueville warned about the concentration of power back in the 1830s. The executive branch can essentially legislate because it controls a vast bureaucracy which makes rules and which is largely unaccountable to the public. What happens is largely obscured from view. Presidents can start wars; Congress was supposed to have this power. Presidents can issue these illegal "signing statements" when accepting a law which essentially gives the proposed law an executive twist saying how it is intended to be enforced -- again, this is contrary to the Constitution. I think the rot is so great that a mere change of presidents or parties or even Constitutional amendments will not fix things -- rather, we need a second Constitutional Convention to craft a new one which fixes the numerous flaws (gerrymandering, underrepresentation of voters from populous states in the Senate, etc) with more serious ones -- a flawed foreign policy architecture, for example. Government can't even begin to address serious long term problems -- Social Security underfunding, environmental dangers, nuclear terrorism. So I am summoning a Convention to meet in Independence Hall beginning July 4, 2009.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
The long haul on the resurgence of the imperial presidency, 2008-06-09
There has been a flurry of books about what Charlie Savage in Takeover - which is one of them - has termed the 'return of the imperial presidency'. Now while most of the books in particular seem to blame the Bush-Cheney administration for the usurpation of executive powers, Crenson and Ginsberg provide a much needed historical and structural analysis of the phenomenon, going back to the beginnings of the Republic. Crenson and Ginsberg convincingly argue that one of the more structural causes of the rise of presidential power is the weakening of the American party system. In the old days parties had a much stronger grip on the selection of presidential candidates. Nowadays, due to the primary system, campaigns are all about personalities who do not merely want to serve their country but aspire nothing less than change history. So if you want to go beyond the last eight years and the post 9/11 analysis of the rise of executive power, this is your best pick.
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