Legislative Capacity and Executive Unilateralism

Abstract

This article develops a theory of presidential unilateralism in which both ideological divergence with Congress and legislative capacity influence the president's use of executive orders. We argue that when Congress is less capable of constraining the executive, the president will issue more executive orders during periods of divided government. Conversely, in periods of high legislative capacity, the president is less likely to issue executive orders when faced with an opposed Congress. Based on an examination of institutional changes, we identify years prior to the mid-1940s as characterized by low congressional capacity and the subsequent period as characterized by high capacity. Testing the theory between 1905 and 2013, we find strong support for these predictions and demonstrate that legislative capacity conditions the role of ideological disagreement in shaping presidential action. Overall, this article deepens our current understanding of the dynamics of separation-of-powers politics and the limits of executive power.

Legislative Constraints on Executive Unilateralism in Separation of Powers Systems

“…For instance, legislative professionalism, resources, and expertise differ greatly across states and might be an important factor in influencing gubernatorial behavior. While previous work has focused on the role of legislative resources for expertise (such as personnel and spending) in moderating partisan conflict in a variety of contexts, including the United States (Bolton and Thrower ; Cockerham and Crew Jr. ; Shair‐Rosenfield and Stoyan ), additional types of resources might be explored. Furthermore, these previous studies are distinct from ours in that they mostly focus on the material resources of legislatures.…”

“…Here, we consider how such factors can moderate the effect of divided government on unilateralism and therefore identify the interactive conditions most conducive for executive restraint . Our inquiry is also distinct from much of the previous work on legislative capacity that solely focuses on material resources (e.g., Bolton and Thrower ) by highlighting the importance of policymaking capacity and the opportunities available to legislatures to challenge the executive. We now turn to an empirical evaluation of our theoretical framework and its implications with an analysis of executive order issuance in the 50 American states states from 1993 to 2013.…”

“…Most of these theories have yet to be tested on the state level where institutional, political, and economic variation is substantially more abundant. Finally, there is a small but growing literature on how legislative capacity influences unilateralism (Bolton and Thrower ; Cockerham and Crew Jr. ; Shair‐Rosenfield and Stoyan ). This work focuses primarily on the the material resources legislatures possess.…”

Lame‐Duck Foreign Policy

“…To account for the extent of congressional opposition I generate a measure of opposition size unity. The measure averages across both chambers of the product of the president's party's control and unity divided by that of the opposition (Bolton and Thrower )…”

The Historical Presidency Unilateral Politics in the Traditional Era: Significant Executive Orders and Proclamations, 1861–1944

“…The first tests usage during the traditional era (1861–1944), and the second tests usage in the modern era (1945–2016) . The year 1944 was chosen as the end of the traditional era because the modern era, as it relates to unilateralism, has been identified in the literature as beginning in 1945 onward (Howell ; Young ; Bolton and Thrower ). All models include presidential fixed effects, but they are not shown.…”