Brandon Rottinghaus

The Power of Decree: Presidential Use of Executive Proclamations, 1977-2005

Recent scholarship on unilateral presidential actions has recast our understanding of modern presidential policy making. However, our knowledge on this issue remains incomplete. In this article, the authors expand the literature on the unilateral presidency by exploring presidential proclamations from 1977 to 2005 (Presidents Carter to Bush) and identifying the importance of these tools as a policy-making instrument in expanding presidential power. By carefully examining the use of presidential proclamations, the authors discover that a majority of presidential proclamations involve presidential authority under congressionally delegated powers of international trade (and presidents most often use this authority to propose new trade arrangements or modify existing trade agreements), and they use this power in coordination with (but largely independent of) Congress. Presidents also use proclamations on the issue of national parks and federal lands exclusively to initiate new federal arrangements to establish new national parks or protections for federal lands, often against the will of Congress.

When the President Goes Public: The Consequences of Communication Mode for Opinion Change across Issue Types and Groups

Evidence is mounting that presidents find difficulty in leading public opinion. However, focusing on presidential ability to lead mass opinion may underestimate the degree to which presidents are able to rally key groups on political and personal characteristics. In this article, the authors use an experimental design to test the effect of communication mode across issue types and groups. From three of President Bush’s speeches on Iraq (the State of the Union, an Oval Office address, and a press conference), the data show that by going public the president can influence political opinions across certain issue types and groups. Among the findings are that the groups most affected by the president’s speeches are not always his core constituency but often his putative opponents. However, this opinion change by the noncore groups is often limited to direct presidential addresses and evaluations of the president’s personal qualities. The implication is that writing off presidential leadership as totally ineffective may be as yet premature.

Strategic Leaders: Determining Successful Presidential Opinion Leadership Tactics Through Public Appeals

Most scholars find presidents generally fail at moving the publics views on policy; however, although presidents may fail at opinion leadership at the aggregate level, examining specific communication tactics may yield a more nuanced view of when presidents succeed or fail at leadership. In this article, using a comprehensive data set spanning 1953 to 2001, several strategic communication tactics through which the president might influence temporary opinion movement are examined. Findings show that presidential use of nationally televised addresses is the most consistently effective strategy to enhance presidential leadership, but the effect is lessened for later serving presidents. Strategies involving domestic travel never positively affect leadership, while televised interactions with the media always negatively affect leadership success. The cumulative results imply that presidents can momentarily lead public opinion with particular tactics and that the conditions enhancing leadership are partially in their control, suggesting presidential capability to strategically lead public opinion.

Presidential Leadership on Foreign Policy, Opinion Polling, and the Possible Limits of “Crafted Talk”

The strategy of “crafted talk” (or framing) suggests that a politician uses public opinion to anticipate the most alluring, language to convince the public to follow a politicians own preferred policy (Jacobs & Shapiro, 2000). This manipulatory behavior by presidents has important consequences in the realm of constructing foreign policy, especially if the policy involves military service personnel, international prestige, or foreign conflict. However, no scholar has investigated White House archival data to examine the theoretical nuances of presidential “crafting” talk when constructing arguments for foreign policy. This article examines three case studies using internal polling memoranda and focus group results concerning the Vietnam War under President Johnson, the signing of the INF Treaty with the Soviet Union under President Reagan, and the Gulf War under President Bush. In each of the three cases, public opinion places serious constraints on presidential framing of foreign policy. Implications for the effectiveness of political framing and the limits of presidential persuasion are discussed.

The Politics of Requesting Appointments: Congressional Requests in the Appointment and Nomination Process

There is persistent debate about who most influences the federal appointment process, especially whether the executive branch staffs the federal bureaucracy with individuals loyal to the White House or relies on the process as an accommodation to important political players, especially members of Congress. Yet, people still know little about the role members of Congress play in the process of shaping the prenomination environment. In this article, the authors address this debate by using unique archival data from the Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford Presidential Libraries to identify which legislators contacted the president about a specific nomination or appointment request and under what conditions these requests were successful. The authors find that legislator resources, Senate membership, and those closer ideologically to the president are related both to the number of requests made and to the number of successful appointment or nomination requests granted. The results suggest that the president relies on members of Congress for credible information about staffing administrative positions, but they appoint or nominate individuals that are in their own interest, not necessarily to accommodate Congress.

Stonewalling and Suspicion during Presidential Scandals

Scholars possess little theoretical understanding of how presidents behave during scandals. Existing presidential scholarship has focused on “offensive” communication, aimed at achieving legislative or policy goals, whereas the authors’ interest is in “defensive” communication. Using a game-theoretic signaling model of the president–media relationship, the authors identify conditions affecting White House stonewalling and media feeding frenzies. The president’s optimal behavior changes depending on circumstances, particularly the level of presidential involvement in the alleged misdeeds. The authors illustrate this with a case study of the Iran-Contra scandals and an empirical analysis of scandals from the Nixon through the Bush administrations.

Reexamining the Use of Unilateral Orders Source of Authority and the Power to Act Alone

Recent debate on the use of unilateral presidential directives suggests that a president’s ability to shape and act without the consent of Congress is largely unchecked by traditional institutional arrangements while other research shows that presidents are more likely to be restrained by Congress. This article contributes to this debate by examining the source of authority used in unilateral orders. Using a new database of unilateral orders and a new theory, we reexamine when presidents use unilateral orders. We find that orders that invoke Congressionally based sources of authority are used when Congress is stronger while those that are presidency-based are used when Congress is weaker. These findings allow us to be more precise about how presidential unilateral strategy is shaped by institutional forces.

Counting Congress in: Patterns of Success in Judicial Nomination Requests by Members of Congress to Presidents Eisenhower and Ford

The power to nominate and confirm federal judges is shared by Congress and the president, yet few works explicitly address the role that Congress plays in shaping the preselection pool for judicial nominees. In this article, we illuminate this debate by exploring judicial nomination requests from Members of Congress to the Eisenhower and Ford Administrations. In explaining who is nominated, the characteristics of the nominee matter more than the characteristics of the nominator, with the party affiliation of a nominee being the strongest predictive factor. Institutional characteristics are more prevalent at the confirmation stage, where the Senate relied more heavily on its members and the judicial experience of nominees than did presidents in nominating them. Given our results, partisanship appears to have mattered earlier than presumed in judicial nominations, with even ostensibly nonpartisan presidents such as Eisenhower understanding the importance of appointing like-minded individuals to lifetime positions on the bench.

In Lieu of Legislation: Executive Unilateral Preemption or Support during the Legislative Process

In the legislative process, presidents may negotiate with Congress or use unilateral action as a bargaining tool. When presidents issue a unilateral order during the legislative process, do these orders “preempt” or “support” legislation? We match unilateral orders with related legislative activity and find presidents are more likely to use unilateral orders to “preempt” legislation when the issue is on the president’s agenda or in the second half of their second terms but “support” legislation when of the same party as the bill sponsor. These findings suggest that presidents not only take advantage of Congressional incapacity but also exert unilateral power in support of legislation.

Presidential “Going Bipartisan” and the Consequences for Institutional Approval

Although scholars have described how legislative efforts to spur bipartisanship fare, we have little knowledge about how bipartisanship can affect political opinions with their rhetoric or the most impactful message for opponents to respond. Using President Obama’s bipartisan speech to the GOP House Issues Conference in 2010, we look at the effect of the one-sided message on President Obama’s favorability rating. We then pair this message with three competing messages of varying partisanship to determine the degree of change (if any). The results show that the President’s one-sided message is effective, but if met with a competitive bipartisan message from the opposition party, approval of the President by all partisan groups increases even more. However, if the President’s bipartisan message frame is met using a partisan message from the opposition party, the President’s approval declines among all partisans, and approval of the Republicans in Congress increases but only for Republican identifiers.