The President as Prisoner: A Structural Critique of the Carter and Reagan YearsThis book focuses, not on the Constitutional balance of power between Congress and the White House a focus that restricts analysis to questions of means but on the more unsettling and often unexamined question of the ends of the presidency and American public policy. It offers a structural theory which links what a president can do to the underlying interests behind and ideology of the capitalist state. Structural theory insists upon an encounter between theories of the state and theories of the presidency, and in so doing steers the field of presidential studies into largely uncharted territory. Grover explores the tradeoffs and limitations encountered by Presidents Carter and Reagan as they pursued the goals of economic prosperity and national security. He argues that the limitations imposed on the presidency are more complicated than the personal deficiencies of a particular person. Such structural limitations, Grover notes, are not merely constitutional but economic and statist. His analogy of the president as prisoner in this larger sense is compelling. |
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Contents
The Rise and Decline of Presidency Fetishism | 15 |
Expansivist theories of the presidency | 18 |
The restrictivist reply | 39 |
The Structure of the Presidency | 63 |
The missing links | 74 |
The Presidency and Economic Growth The Case of OSHA Under the Carter and Reagan Administrations | 89 |
A brief history of the Occupational Safety and Health Act | 91 |
The internal tension | 97 |
National SecurityNational Insecurity The MX Missile Confronts Two Presidencies | 127 |
The secluded history of the MX missile | 130 |
In like a lamb out like a lion | 139 |
The lion roams | 152 |
The structural inertia of national security | 165 |
Restructuring the Bounds of the Presidency | 171 |
Whose president is it anyway? | 179 |
Notes | 187 |
Other editions - View all
The President as Prisoner: A Structural Critique of the Carter and Reagan Years William F. Grover No preview available - 1989 |
Common terms and phrases
agency agenda American political American Presidency approach balance basic Brzezinski capital capitalist Carter and Reagan chapter chief executive cold war Congress congressional constitutional corporate cost-benefit analysis cotton dust counterforce crisis critique Cronin debate decisions defense democracy democratic domestic economic growth expansivist Federal foreign policy goals Ibid ICBM imperatives imperial presidency injury institutions interests issue Jimmy Carter Labor land-based Laski liberal Lowi major military Minuteman Miroff MX missile national security Neustadt Nixon nuclear war nuclear weapons Occupational Safety OSH Act OSHA OSHA's perspective political economy postwar presidency scholars President Carter President Reagan Presidential Government presidential leadership presidential power Press problem Reagan administration reform regulatory restrictivist role Roosevelt Rossiter Rossiter's safety and health SALT II Schlesinger Schlesinger's sense silos social regulations Soviet Union standards strike structural Stuart Eizenstat theories threat vulnerability Washington Watergate White House workers Workplace York
Popular passages
Page 6 - The President can never again be the mere domestic figure he has been throughout so large a part of our history. The nation has risen to the first rank in power and resources. The other nations of the world look askance upon her, half in envy, half in fear, and wonder with a deep anxiety what she will do with her vast strength.
Bibliographic information
| Title | The President as Prisoner: A Structural Critique of the Carter and Reagan Years SUNY series in the presidency SUNY series on the Presidency: Contemporary Issues |
| Author | William F. Grover |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | SUNY Press, 1989 |
| ISBN | 0791400913, 9780791400913 |
| Length | 232 pages |
| Subjects | › › Political Science / American Government / General Political Science / General Political Science / Public Affairs & Administration |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |