Given gridlock in Congress, presidents and subunits of Congress are increasingly pursuing their policy goals in the executive branch. Yet we know little about how they go about doing so. In Chapter 1, I introduce the broad notion of positive agenda control by the president. Up until this point, the existing literature has been narrowly focused on presidents' negative agenda control over agencies (Moe 1985; Nathan 1983) and has only recognized positive agenda control in terms of executive orders (Moe and Howell 1999; Howell 2003). I argue that presidents direct their resources toward allied agencies to strengthen, pass, and implement policies the president supports. Using a newly collected dataset, I look at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the most important innovation in presidential power in 35 years, and I show that Presidents Clinton and Obama were disproportionately likely to use OIRA to review the policies of relatively more liberal agencies and President George W. Bush was disproportionately likely to use OIRA to review the policies of relatively more conservative agencies. This finding differs from the conventional wisdom that OIRA is a presidential watchdog and it changes how we think about presidential power in administrative oversight. In Chapter 2, together with Abby Wood and Sean Gailmard, I turn to congressional committees and their pursuit of policy goals in the executive branch. We introduce the theory that congressional committees use oversight of bureaucracy as a means to mitigate agency problems they face with the bureaucracy. Up until this point, scholars have not systematically connected the oversight activity of Congress to the democratic problems created by delegation. The landmark analysis of Aberbach 1990 placed oversight in a framework centered on Congress and the broad contours of the national policymaking environment, without taking into account agency policymaking activity. In contrast, we present a principal-agent model of oversight and find support in a newly-collected dataset of on-the-record legislative hearings for the model's three observable implications: legislative oversight is increasing in agency policymaking activity, increasing in the amount of ideological conflict between committees and agencies, and increasing in the amount of ideological conflict between House and Senate committees during divided Congresses. Our results provide evidence that committees oversee agencies not merely to position-take for the next campaign cycle, but to influence actual policy outcomes. In Chapter 3, I return to a focus on the president and I treat limiting lobbyist influence as a policy goal in its own right. I argue that lobbyists going "offensive" in their lobbying strategies combined with underwriting some of the work of under-resourced agencies puts lobbyists in a position to set the agenda in the executive branch. I contribute a bargaining model in which an agency, the president, and a lobbyist each have agenda-setting power some of the time. I derive the conditions under which the president, so long as he or she is not perfectly ideologically aligned with the agency, can limit the influence of the lobbyist on the agency's policies by acting as a "tough" bargaining agent. This model reveals a tradeoff from the standpoint of the agency between working with an ideologically aligned president (an ally on policymaking goals) and working with an ideologically unaligned president who can help limit lobbyist influence.

The presidency and the agencies of the executive branch are deeply interwoven with other core institutions of American government and politics. While the framers of the Constitution granted power to the president, they likewise imbued the legislative and judicial branches of government with the powers necessary to hold the executive in check. The Executive Branch, edited byJoel D. Aberbach and Mark A. Peterson, examines the delicate and shifting balance among the three branches of government, which is constantly renegotiated as political leaders contend with the public's paradoxical sentiments-yearning for strong executive leadership yet fearing too much executive power, and welcoming the benefits of public programs yet uneasy about, and indeed often distrusting, big government. The Executive Branch, a collection of essays by some of the nation's leading political scientists and public policy scholars, examines the historical emergence and contemporary performance of the presidency and bureaucracy, as well as their respective relationships with the Congress, the courts, political parties, and American federalism. Presidential elections are defining moments for the nation's democracy-by linking citizens directly to their government, elections serve as a mechanism for exercising collective public choice. After the election, however, the work of government begins and involves elected and appointed political leaders at all levels of government, career civil servants, government contractors, interest organizations, the media, and engaged citizens. The essays in this volume delve deeply into the organizations and politics that make the executive branch such a complex and fascinating part of American government. The volume provides an assessment from the past to the present of the role and development of the presidency and executive branch agencies, including analysis of the favorable and problematic strategies, and personal attributes, that presidents have brought to the challenge of leadership. It examines the presidency and the executive agencies both separately and together as they influence-or are influenced by-other major institutions of American government and politics, with close attention to how they relate to civic participation and democracy.

Presents a collection of essay that provide an examination of the Executive branch in American government, explaining how the Constitution created the executive branch and discusses how the executive interacts with the other two branches of government at the federal and state level.

Rivals for Power is a lively description of the power struggle between the president and Congress. In it, leading congressional and presidential scholars and knowledgeable former public officials consider the historical, political, and constitutional foundations of conflict between the two branches. The authors give practical advice about how to build cooperative policymaking between the president and Congress as they struggle over major crises in solving economic problems and addressing domestic issues and the challenges in defense and foreign policy making. The book features original academic research and practitioner knowledge from the White House and the Hill. This fourth edition includes all new essays with unique and critical viewpoints on the role of the president and Congress in the policy making process. Many of the essays focus on lessons learned about cooperation and conflict between the two branches from the Clinton and Bush presidencies. The essays include preliminary analyses of President Barack Obama's relationship with Congress. Because the authors have made major contributions as congressional and presidential scholars, and have played key roles in Congress, in the White House, in the media, and as lobbyists, each chapter presents a different perspective. The new edition of Rivals for Power is intended for students, scholars, public officials, the media, and the general public. Contributions by Gary Andres, Richard S. Conley, Roger H. Davidson, The Honorable Mickey Edwards, Louis Fisher, Patrick Griffin, The Honorable Lee H. Hamilton, Mark J. Oleszek, Walter J. Oleszek, John E. Owens, James P. Pfiffner, Mark J. Rozell, Andrew Rudalevige, Barbara Sinclair, Mitchel A. Sollenberger, James A. Thurber, Stephen J. Wayne, and Joseph White.

The study of the presidency—the power of the office, the evolution of the executive as an institution, the men who have served—has generated a great body of research and scholarship. What better way to get students to grapple with the ideas of the literature than through conflicting perspectives on some of the most pivotal issues facing the modern presidency? Richard Ellis and Michael Nelson have once again assembled a cadre of top scholars to offer a series of pro/con essays that will inspire spirited debate beyond the pages of the book. Each essay—written in the form of a debate resolution— offers a compelling yet concise view on the American executive.

Although congressional investigations have provided some of the most dramatic moments in American political history, they have often been dismissed as mere political theater. But these investigations are far more than grandstanding. Investigating the President shows that congressional investigations are a powerful tool for members of Congress to counter presidential aggrandizement. By shining a light on alleged executive wrongdoing, investigations can exert significant pressure on the president and materially affect policy outcomes. Douglas Kriner and Eric Schickler construct the most comprehensive overview of congressional investigative oversight to date, analyzing nearly thirteen thousand days of hearings, spanning more than a century, from 1898 through 2014. The authors examine the forces driving investigative power over time and across chambers, identify how hearings might influence the president's strategic calculations through the erosion of the president’s public approval rating, and uncover the pathways through which investigations have shaped public policy. Put simply, by bringing significant political pressure to bear on the president, investigations often afford Congress a blunt, but effective check on presidential power—without the need to worry about veto threats or other hurdles such as Senate filibusters. In an era of intense partisan polarization and institutional dysfunction, Investigating the President delves into the dynamics of congressional investigations and how Congress leverages this tool to counterbalance presidential power.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. A fundamental objective of congressional oversight (CO) is to hold exec. officials accountable for the implementation of delegated authority. This objective is especially important given the huge expansion of executive influence in the modern era. Clearly, given the role and scope of the fed. establishment, the importance of Congress¿s review function looms large in checking and monitoring the delegated authority that it grants to fed. departments and agencies. This report: (1) highlights several reasons for the expansion of the fed. gov¿t.; (2) discusses a few definitions of CO; (3) spotlights 3 purposes of oversight; (4) comments upon CO laws and rules; (5) reviews CO techniques; and (6) identifies incentives and disincentives to CO. Illus.