The President's Legislative Policy Agenda, 1789-2002
Cambridge University Press, 11/1/2012
EAN 9781107634978, ISBN10: 1107634970
Paperback, 312 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
Jeffrey E. Cohen asks why US presidents send to Congress the legislative proposals that they do and what Congress does with those proposals. His study covers nearly the entire history of the presidency, from 1789 to 2002. The long historical scope allows Cohen to engage competing perspectives on how the presidency has developed over time. He asks what accounts for the short- and long-term trends in presidential requests to Congress, what substantive policies and issues recommendations are concerned with, and what factors affect the presidential decision to submit a recommendation on a particular issue. The President's Legislative Policy Agenda, 1789–2002 argues that presidents often anticipate the Congressional reaction to their legislative proposals and modify their agendas accordingly.
Introduction. Two puzzles
1. The president's legislative policy agenda
2. Studying agenda building
3. A theory of presidential legislative policy agenda building
4. The size of the president's agenda
5. The substantive content of presidential agenda
6. Divided government and presidential policy moderation
7. From the White House to Capitol Hill
presidential agenda success in Congress
8. Conclusions.
Advance praise: 'A real step forward for presidential studies ... Cohen's arguments about a president's forethought and capacity for strategy provide considerable traction in explaining his empirical findings. This imaginative, painstaking, and astoundingly large-scale analysis by one of our best presidential scholars will surely stimulate a new wave of empirical work and (one hopes) some tough-minded theorizing about presidential proposal power.' Charles M. Cameron, Princeton University