Edexcel Politics A-level USA: US presidency Key terms

Domestic politics Issues within the USA that directly concern citizens, e.g. health care, gun control, racial issues.

Electoral mandate An electoral mandate is the permission granted to a political leader or winning party to govern and act on their behalf, e.g. to President Obama in 2008 and 2012. The mandate is more or less in effect for as long as the government is in power.

Executive branch The executive branch, headed by the president, is one of the three branches of government; the other two are the legislative branch (headed by Congress) and the judiciary (headed by the Supreme Court).

Executive orders A direction to the federal bureaucracy on how the president would like a piece of legislation to be implemented.

Imperial presidency A dominant presidency with ineffective checks and balances from the other branches.

Imperilled presidency This is the contrasting theory to that of an imperial presidency - it is claimed that the president does not have enough power to be effective.

Informal powers Powers of the president not listed in the Constitution but taken anyway.

Powers of persuasion This is an informal power of the president in which they can use the prestige of their job, and other bargaining methods in order to get people to do as they wish.

Unified government Where both Houses of Congress and the presidency are controlled by people from the same political party.

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