Short Answer Questions Will Be Drawn from the Questions Below

PS 310

Fall 2008

Final Review Sheet

The final will have 6 short answer questions and two longer essay questions.

Short answer questions will be drawn from the questions below.

I reserve the right to include questions from the first half of the class, though the emphasis will be on the following:

Press and the President

What is framing? Priming? How does the media affect public opinion? How do trends in the business of news affect the news coverage of the president? What are some ways in which the president tries to control the media? To what degree can the media serve as a check on presidential power?

Public Opinion

How do people form opinions about the president’s job performance? What are approval ratings really measuring? Why is public approval important to the president? In what ways is it a resource? A Constraint? What is Going Public? How does Kernell argue Washington has changed over time? What are institutionalized and individualized pluralism? Why is Going Public a more common strategy today than it used to be? Is public opinion more of a resource for presidents now than it used to be? How can presidents manipulate public opinion?

Rally Effects

What is a rally effect? What circumstances give rise to one? What advantages does a president gain by focusing his attention on international rather than domestic affairs? Do presidents face fewer constraints during a perceived crisis? If so, why?

Congress

What are the president’s legislative powers, according to the Constitution? What are his informal legislative powers? What are Congress’ constitutional powers? In what ways is Congress on equal footing with the president? In what ways does Congress dominate lawmaking? Who has the upper hand in legislative negotiations? How does public opinion affect those negotiations? When is a president more likely to be successful in his negotiations with Congress? Is the passage of major legislation affected by divided government? When will we see Congress and the President compromise? When will we see them fail to compromise? Define the following terms: half a loaf, veto bait, unified government, successive approximations.

Impeachment

What are the Constitutional provisions respecting impeachment? What did the Framers think about when deciding on that language? What are the three cases of impeachment? Of the three crises described in the Pfiffner piece, which is the most egregious? Which is the least? Why? Is the cover-up worse than the original action? What distinguishes Nixon’s actions from those of other presidents who did or did not face impeachment?Is the impeachment process a tool that Congress can use against all presidents who deserve it? Or does it require specific a political environment or specific type of violation to be effective?

War Powers

How did the framers design the president’s and Congress’ constitutional war powers? How did early presidents conceive of the president’s war powers? Of Congress’ war powers? How did they interpret the commander-in-chief clause? Describe an example of early presidential use of war powers. How do modern presidents conceive of the president’s war powers? Of Congress’ war powers? Why did that change in interpretation take place? What role do modern international institutions play in our domestic war powers disputes? What did the UN Participation Act say? What was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?What examples of modern uses of war powers are most memorable to you? Does the War Powers Resolution empower or constrain the president? Did Congress have enough input in the decision to go to war in Iraq? What are some examples of presidents’ use of prerogative power in wartime? How would you evaluate President Bush’s uses of wartime power?

Executive Branch

How does Congress make it hard for the president to control the bureaucracy? Why does Moe think that the president is in a better position to control the bureaucracy than Congress is? What is bureaucratic capture? The Senior Executive Service? How has the president’s ability to control the bureaucracy, both through budgeting and regulatory oversight, changed over time? Why might it be important for the president to have his own staff? What are the three strategies that the President can use to control the bureaucracy? What advantages and disadvantages to the president, and to the system at large, come with a large presidential bureaucracy? Is the cabinet currently a resource for the president? Are his White House advisers assets to him? How do presidents weigh loyalty vs. competence? Which side do they usually take? How do presidential management techniques differ? Is there one that you think is best?

Why do presidents take unilateral action? Are there reasons why or ways in which they should not take unilateral action? What are Executive Orders? How are they different from Presidential Memoranda, Proclamations, and National Security Directives? What is the Federal Administrative Procedures Act? What are Signing Statements and what is controversial about them? Was Bush’s signing statement on the torture bill a legitimate use of presidential power?

Judiciary

In what ways is the judiciary independent of the president? In what ways is it shaped by him? In what ways does the President have the upper hand over the judiciary?

Terms/cases you should be able to briefly describe: Court packing, Worcester v. Georgia, Ex parte Merryman, US v. Nixon, Marbury vs. Madison, Mississippi vs. Johnson, US v. Curtiss Wright Export Corporation, Youngstown Sheet and Tube v. Sawyer, Zone of Twilight, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Executive privilege

Informal Constraints

What does Greenstein think of Eisenhower’s skill as a leader? What do you think? What are the six elements of what he calls “hidden hand leadership?” What do you think of his strategy of hidden hand leadership? What would you think if Bill Clinton or George W. Bush employed the same strategy? What would the press think?

What presidential personal qualities did we discuss? What, according to that list, are Bill Clinton’s strengths and weaknesses? How did Bill Clinton’s personal characteristics affect his presidency? What are George W. Bush’s personal strengths and weaknesses? How did his personal characteristics affect his presidency?

Which do you think is a more important determinant of presidential success: the president’s personality or his political environment?Describe Skowronek’s theory of Political Time.What are regimes? What are the characteristics of reconstructive, preemptive, articulator, and disjunctive presidents? Where does George W. Bush fall in political time? How should we make that determination? What in the political environment constrained the last five presidents? What in the political environment empowered them?How might we critique Skowronek’s argument?

Is there such a thing as a great president? Who would you rate as the best president of all time? On what basis do you make that decision? How do you think the future judgment of history affects a president’s thinking?

Comparative Executives

How powerful is the American president compared to the executives in other democracies? What are the relative strengths of a president in a separated system? What are the relative strengths of a prime minister in a parliamentary system?

Terms: Westminster system, Prime minister in a PR system