Download or read book The Managerial Presidency written by James P. Pfiffner and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the scope and size of the U.S. government has expanded, the importance of good management to the success of a presidency has also increased. Although good management cannot guarantee political or policy success, poor management can certainly undermine good policy and political efforts. In this second edition of The Managerial Presidency James P. Pfiffner brings together both classic analyses and more recent treatments of managerial issues that affect the presidency. Some of the foremost presidency scholars have contributed to this volume, including Richard Neustadt, Charles O. Jones, Hugh Heclo, George Edwards, and Louis Fisher. This second edition includes more recent scholarship by Roger Porter, Steven Kelman, Peri Arnold, and Ronald Moe. The focus of this collection is the extent to which presidents can exercise control over the executive branch bureaucracies and whether it is wise for them to exert that control. Part one deals with the question of how to organize the White House staff. If this organizational problem is not resolved, solving the broader problems of organization and policy will be that much more difficult. Part two addresses the question of how much control presidents should exert over the departments and agencies of the executive branch and how the White House staff and other political appointees relate to career civil servants. The final section examines presidential managerial reform efforts and the congressional role in managing the government. Although the contributors to this collection do not all agree on how the presidency should be managed, there is surprising consensus on which questions ought to be asked. The analyses addressing those questions will be of interest to students and scholars of the modern presidency as well as those interested in executive leadership and public administration.

Download or read book Making the Managerial Presidency written by Peri E. Arnold and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the political history of administrative reform undertaken by 20th-century presidents. Attempting to explain the growth of modern bureaucracy within an 18th-century framework and the expansion of presidential control over administrative powers, the author explores the relationship between administrative theory and the dilemmas posed for a developing administrative state by the separation of powers. He also looks at and compares successive cases of presidentially initiated comprehensive reform planning, in order to understand the implications for the president's institutional role. Paper edition (unseen), $25.00. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book President as Leader written by Michael E Siegel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By analyzing the leadership skills of five recent American presidents, this book seeks to de-mystify the elements and dynamics of effective presidential leadership which our democracy has come to depend upon and value. Building on the pioneering work of political scientist Fred Greenstein and others, this book argues that leadership in the White House can be explained and assessed by using a consistent set of criteria to analyze presidential performance. Siegel shows that presidential leadership is exercised by real, flawed human beings, and not by superheroes or philosopher-kings beyond the reach of scrutiny or critique.

Download or read book Rethinking the Administrative Presidency written by William G. Resh and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-12 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to explore the tension between presidents and federal agencies from the perspective of careerists in the executive branch. Winner of the Herbert A. Simon Book Award of the American Political Science Association Why do presidents face so many seemingly avoidable bureaucratic conflicts? And why do these clashes usually intensify toward the end of presidential administrations, when a commander-in-chief’s administrative goals tend to be more explicit and better aligned with their appointed leadership’s prerogatives? In Rethinking the Administrative Presidency, William G. Resh considers these complicated questions from an empirical perspective. Relying on data drawn from surveys and interviews, Resh rigorously analyzes the argument that presidents typically start from a premise of distrust when they attempt to control federal agencies. Focusing specifically on the George W. Bush administration, Resh explains how a lack of trust can lead to harmful agency failure. He explores the extent to which the Bush administration was able to increase the reliability—and reduce the cost—of information to achieve its policy goals through administrative means during its second term. Arguing that President Bush's use of the administrative presidency hindered trust between appointees and career executives to deter knowledge sharing throughout respective agencies, Resh also demonstrates that functional relationships between careerists and appointees help to advance robust policy. He employs a “joists vs. jigsaws” metaphor to stress his main point: that mutual support based on optimistic trust is a more effective managerial strategy than fragmentation founded on unsubstantiated distrust.

Download or read book The Impossible Presidency written by Jeremi Suri and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold new history of the American presidency, arguing that the successful presidents of the past created unrealistic expectations for every president since JFK, with enormously problematic implications for American politics In The Impossible Presidency, celebrated historian Jeremi Suri charts the rise and fall of the American presidency, from the limited role envisaged by the Founding Fathers to its current status as the most powerful job in the world. He argues that the presidency is a victim of its own success-the vastness of the job makes it almost impossible to fulfill the expectations placed upon it. As managers of the world's largest economy and military, contemporary presidents must react to a truly globalized world in a twenty-four-hour news cycle. There is little room left for bold vision. Suri traces America's disenchantment with our recent presidents to the inevitable mismatch between presidential promises and the structural limitations of the office. A masterful reassessment of presidential history, this book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand America's fraught political climate.

Download or read book Executive Policymaking written by Meena Bose and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deep look into the agency that implements the president's marching orders to the rest of the executive branch The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is one of the federal government's most important and powerful agencies—but it's also one of the least-known among the general public. This book describes why the office is so important and why both scholars and citizens should know more about what it does. The predecessor to the modern OMB was founded in 1921, as the Bureau of the Budget within the Treasury Department. President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it in 1939 into the Executive Office of the President, where it's been ever since. The office received its current name in 1970, during the Nixon administration. For most people who know about it, the OMB's only apparent job is to supervise preparation of the president's annual budget request to Congress. That job, in itself, gives the office tremendous influence within the executive branch. But OMB has other responsibilities that give it a central role in how the federal government functions on a daily basis. OMB reviews all of the administration's legislative proposals and the president's executive orders. It oversees the development and implementation of nearly all government management initiatives. The office also analyses the costs and benefits of major government regulations, this giving it great sway over government actions that affect nearly every person and business in America. One question facing voters in the 2020 elections will be how well the executive branch has carried out the president's promises; a major aspect of that question centers around the wider work of the OMB. This book will help members of the public, as well as scholars and other experts, answer that question.

Download or read book Making the Managerial Presidency written by Peri E. Arnold and published by . This book was released on 1986-01-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Description for this book, Making the Managerial Presidency: Comprehensive Reorganization Planning, 1905-1980, will be forthcoming.

Download or read book The Administrative Presidency written by Richard P. Nathan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1983 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Remaking the Presidency written by Peri E. Arnold and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a period of American history marked by congressional primacy, presidential passivity, and hostility to governmental action, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson became iconic presidents through activist leadership. Peri Arnold, a leading presidential scholar, goes beyond the biographers to explain what really set Roosevelt apart from his predecessor William McKinley, how Wilson differed from his successor Warren G. Harding, and how we might better understand the forgettable William Howard Taft in between. This is the first comparative study of the three Progressive Era presidents, examining the context in which they served, the evolving institutional role of the presidency, and the personal characteristics of each man. Arnold explains why Roosevelt and Wilson pursued activist roles, how they gained the means for effective leadership in a role that had not previously supported it, and how each of the three negotiated the choppy crosscurrents of changing institutions and politics with entirely different outcomes. Arnold delineates the American political scene at the turn of the twentieth century, one characterized by a weakening of party organizations, the rise of interest groups and print media, and increasing demands for reform. He shows how the Progressive Era presidents marked a transition from the nineteenth century's checks and balances to the twentieth's expansive presidential role, even though demands for executive leadership were at odds with the presidency's means to take independent action. Each of these presidents was uniquely challenged to experiment with the office's new potential for political independence from party and Congress, and Arnold explains how each had to justify their authority for such experimentation. He also shows how their actions were reflected in specific policy case studies: the Northern Trust and naval modernization under Roosevelt, tariff reform and the Pinchot/Ballinger debate over conservation under Taft, and the Federal Reserve and Federal Trade Commission under Wilson. Ultimately, Arnold shows how the period's ferment affected both the presidency and its incumbents and how they in turn affected progressive politics. More important, he helps us better understand two presidents who continue to inspire politicians of differing stripes and relates their leadership styles to the modern development of the presidency.

Download or read book The President s Book of Secrets written by David Priess and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every president has had a unique and complicated relationship with the intelligence community. While some have been coolly distant, even adversarial, others have found their intelligence agencies to be among the most valuable instruments of policy and power. Since John F. Kennedy's presidency, this relationship has been distilled into a personalized daily report: a short summary of what the intelligence apparatus considers the most crucial information for the president to know that day about global threats and opportunities. This top–secret document is known as the President's Daily Brief, or, within national security circles, simply “the Book.” Presidents have spent anywhere from a few moments (Richard Nixon) to a healthy part of their day (George W. Bush) consumed by its contents; some (Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush) consider it far and away the most important document they saw on a regular basis while commander in chief. The details of most PDBs are highly classified, and will remain so for many years. But the process by which the intelligence community develops and presents the Book is a fascinating look into the operation of power at the highest levels. David Priess, a former intelligence officer and daily briefer, has interviewed every living president and vice president as well as more than one hundred others intimately involved with the production and delivery of the president's book of secrets. He offers an unprecedented window into the decision making of every president from Kennedy to Obama, with many character–rich stories revealed here for the first time.

Download or read book The Institutional Presidency written by John P. Burke and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Franklin Roosevelt decided his administration needed a large executive staff, he instituted dramatic and lasting changes in the federal bureaucracy and in the very nature of the presidency. Today, no president can govern without an enormous White House staff. Yet analysts have disagreed about whether the key to a president's success lies in his ability to understand and adapt to the constraints of this bureaucracy or in his ability to control and even transform it to suit his needs. In The Institutional Presidency John Burke argues that both skills are crucial. Burke examines how the White House staff system--larger and more powerful than ever--interacts with a particular president's management ability and style. He begins by describing the institutional presidency that emerged during the Roosevelt administration and that every modern president inherits. Burke's central argument is that analysts and advisers must examine both the management style of individual presidents and the institutional features of the presidency that transcend particular administrations. The success of an administration, he argues, lies in the degree to which the two models can be drawn upon in the day-to-day work of defining and furthering the president's agenda. Burke concludes with a detailed comparison of the Carter and Reagan administrations. He describes Carter as a variant of the collegial manager, and Reagan as more formalistic. In spite of very different approaches to the presidency, he observes, neither was a particularly successful manager--and both experienced tellingly similar difficulties coping with the institutional dynamics of the White House staff. Burke also makes some preliminaryobservations about George Bush--who combines "Eisenhower's more formal procedures with Kennedy's informal, collegial style."

Download or read book The Leadership Question written by Bert A. Rockman and published by Praeger Publishers. This book was released on 1984 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reassessing the Presidency written by David Gordon and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 619 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

American Despots

Amazing low sale price in defense of authentic freedom as versus the presidency that betrayed it!

Everyone seems to agree that brutal dictators and despotic rulers deserve scorn and worse. But why have historians been so willing to overlook the despotic actions of the United States' own presidents? You can scour libraries from one end to the other and encounter precious few criticisms of America's worst despots.

The founders imagined that the president would be a collegial leader with precious little power who constantly faced the threat of impeachment. Today, however, the president orders thousands of young men and women to danger and death in foreign lands, rubber stamps regulations that throw enterprises into upheaval, controls the composition of the powerful Federal Reserve, and manages the priorities millions of swarms of bureaucrats that vex the citizenry in every way.

It is not too much of a stretch to say that the president embodies the Leviathan state as we know it. Or, more precisely, it is not an individual president so much as the very institution of the presidency that has been the major impediment of liberty. The presidency as the founders imagined it has been displaced by democratically ratified serial despotism. And, for that reason, it must be stopped.

Every American president seems to strive to make the historians' A-list by doing big and dramatic things—wars, occupations, massive programs, tyrannies large and small—in hopes of being considered among the "greats" such as Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR. They always imagine themselves as honored by future generations: the worse their crimes, the more the accolades.

Well, the free ride ends with Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom, edited by John Denson.

This remarkable volume (825 pages including index and bibliography) is the first full-scale revision of the official history of the U.S. executive state. It traces the progression of power exercised by American presidents from the early American Republic up to the eventual reality of the power-hungry Caesars which later appear as president in American history. Contributors examine the usual judgments of the historical profession to show the ugly side of supposed presidential greatness.

The mission inherent in this undertaking is to determine how the presidency degenerated into the office of American Caesar. Did the character of the man who held the office corrupt it, or did the power of the office, as it evolved, corrupt the man? Or was it a combination of the two? Was there too much latent power in the original creation of the office as the Anti-Federalists claimed? Or was the power externally created and added to the position by corrupt or misguided men?

There's never been a better guide to everything awful about American presidents. No, you won't get the civics text approach of see no evil. Essay after essay details depredations that will shock you, and wonder how American liberty could have ever survived in light of the rule of these people.

Contributors include George Bittlingmayer, John V. Denson, Marshall L. DeRosa, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Lowell Gallaway, Richard M. Gamble, David Gordon, Paul Gottfried, Randall G. Holcombe, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Michael Levin, Yuri N. Maltsev, William Marina, Ralph Raico, Joseph Salerno, Barry Simpson, Joseph Stromberg, H. Arthur Scott Trask, Richard Vedder, and Clyde Wilson.

Download or read book Making the Managerial Presidency written by Peri E. Arnold and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revised and expanded edition of the classic Making the Managerial Presidency provides a comprehensive history of presidential reorganization planning for the entire twentieth century, from Theodore Roosevelt through Bill Clinton.

Download or read book Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again written by Elaine C. Kamarck and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Failure should not be an option in the presidency, but for too long it has been the norm. From the botched attempt to rescue the U.S. diplomats held hostage by Iran in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter and the missed intelligence on Al Qaeda before 9-11 under George W. Bush to, most recently, the computer meltdown that marked the arrival of health care reform under Barack Obama, the American presidency has been a profile in failure. In Why Presidents Fail and How They Can Succeed Again, Elaine Kamarck surveys these and other recent presidential failures to understand why Americans have lost faith in their leaders—and how they can get it back. Kamarck argues that presidents today spend too much time talking and not enough time governing, and that they have allowed themselves to become more and more distant from the federal bureaucracy that is supposed to implement policy. After decades of "imperial" and "rhetorical" presidencies, we are in need of a "managerial" president. This White House insider and former Harvard academic explains the difficulties of governing in our modern political landscape, and offers examples and recommendations of how our next president can not only recreate faith in leadership but also run a competent, successful administration.

Download or read book Presidential Leadership written by Bert A. Rockman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of compelling analyses by eminent scholars, Presidential Leadership: The Vortex of Power looks at presidential leadership from a variety of perspectives, integrating cutting-edge research on both the incentives and the constraints presidents face in their attempts to lead the country. These original readings contextualize presidential leadership in relation to Congress, the courts, the bureaucracy, the media, and the public. Furthermore, the essays include discussions on executive decision making and both domestic and national security issues.

Download or read book The Administrative State written by Dwight Waldo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-04 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic text, originally published in 1948, is a study of the public administration movement from the viewpoint of political theory and the history of ideas. It seeks to review and analyze the theoretical element in administrative writings and to present the development of the public administration movement as a chapter in the history of American political thought.The objectives of The Administrative State are to assist students of administration to view their subject in historical perspective and to appraise the theoretical content of their literature. It is also hoped that this book may assist students of American culture by illuminating an important development of the first half of the twentieth century. It thus should serve political scientists whose interests lie in the field of public administration or in the study of bureaucracy as a political issue; the public administrator interested in the philosophic background of his service; and the historian who seeks an understanding of major governmental developments.This study, now with a new introduction by public policy and administration scholar Hugh Miller, is based upon the various books, articles, pamphlets, reports, and records that make up the literature of public administration, and documents the political response to the modern world that Graham Wallas named the Great Society. It will be of lasting interest to students of political science, government, and American history.