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The Wartime President: Executive Influence and the Nationalizing Politics of Threat

Online ISBN:
9780226048420
Print ISBN:
9780226048253
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

The Wartime President: Executive Influence and the Nationalizing Politics of Threat

Published online:
23 January 2014
Published in print:
22 August 2013
Online ISBN:
9780226048420
Print ISBN:
9780226048253
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

The Wartime President evaluates the ways in which major U.S. wars reshape our domestic politics generally, and relations between the president and Congress in particular. While paying homage to rich historical and legal literatures on the topic, this book breaks new ground by developing a novel theory that casts our attention toward the potentially nationalizing effects of military crises, and then conducts a series of comprehensive and systematic analyses of wartime policymaking. Theoretically, the book shows that when wars—in particular, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, and the post-September 11 deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq—affirm the importance of distinctly national considerations, legislators are particularly likely to support the president’s policy agenda. And empirically, the book shows that when the nation stands on a war footing Congress is more likely to: a) vote in ways that broadly align with the president’s ideological disposition; and b) more closely abide his budget recommendations. Importantly, the effects documented in this book appear particularly pronounced for World War II and the post-September 11 era, when debates over policy were cast in especially nationalized terms; and the effects appear just as robust, and in some instances more so, in domestic policy as in foreign policy.

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