The power of the modern presidency

 Издательство: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. New York

ISBN: 0-394-31724-6

As this is being written in February 1974 America is in the midst of a continuing crisis over the Presidency of Richard Nixon. It is not immediately clear to what extent it is a crisis of the man or of the institution or of both. The general hope is for a restoration of integrity and constitutional rectitude to the Presidency. This suggests that the crisis is not really deep but will vanish with the man. However, another view would suggest that the Presidency itself has become a kind of republican monarchy by means of which the incumbent President can abuse his powers and be unreachable by any final check short of removal from office. The questions of character and institution thus come together. It is time that we begin to ask fundamental questions about Presidential Power as it has developed in midcentury so that we understand the nature of the crisis in which we find ourselves. This is the principal purpose of the book.

Other more strictly professional purposes converge as well. A book is needed that brings together many different approaches to the study of the Presidency: empirical research by political scientists and historians; memoires by participants in Presidential government; the work f observant and thoughtful journalists who are direct observors of much of the Presidency; and finally the concepts and theories of the other behavioral sciences that might be brought to bear upon the questions of leadership and authority in the Presidency. This book tries to bring all these approaches together.