Action-Forcing Powers and Presidential Initiative Last time: Intro to positive agenda power Today: –more priming, framing and the public agenda –presidents and military initiative

What do legislators want? How can they get what they want? Goals are reelection, good public policy, career advancement; cost minimization Strategies include advertising, position-taking, credit-claiming and delegation The legislature is a collectivity, where MCs have only partially aligned interests –cooperating to do work is hard because of the free rider problem –coordination games typically have multiple equilibria; choosing among these is hard –risk-averse preferences  incentives to defer to experts

Presidential entrepreneurship Presidents have incentives to try to solve legislators’ problems by offering entrepreneurial services –presidential goals also include reelection and good public policy; presidents also seek to advertise, take positions, claim credit Presidential means? –first-mover advantages; focal points –expertise –distributive resources –priming, framing effects of going public

When can the president set the legislative table directly? prez has formal proposal powers only in trade prez (or cabinet members) is often delegated reporting requirements that include requests for legislative proposals first-mover advantages: because leg. is costly, early proposals have advantage over later ones; prez has incentive to give proposals for MCs –the more costly it is to produce an alternative, the greater the 1 st -mover advantage –1 st -mover adv also applies to purely distributive proposals

Bicameral bargaining and presidents Bicameral legislatures create the possibility of bargaining failures 2-player bargaining games: –relative bargaining strengths? –are there “obvious” solutions (Schelling focal point solutions)?

Presidential persuasion “Going public” (external lobbying) –priming –framing Insider lobbying –patronage; campaigning support –persuasion

Can the president prime issues? Jeffery Cohen article on State of the Union addresses: –presidential mentions of an issue area are related to increased mentions of those issues by survey respondents (a priming effect) –prez popularity seems unrelated –leadership effects decay faster in domestic than in foreign policy arenas –no evidence of framing effects

Presidential initiative Where does reversionary policy favor the president? Where does the president have proposal power? Where can the president best shape public opinion? What discretionary resources can the president employ to shape others’ incentives?

Presidential initiative Constitutional authorities: Commander in Chief; chief diplomat; treaties; take-care clause Delegated authorities: contingency funds and discretionary resources; trade agreements

Congress, Prez and Security What are the political goals of security policies? consider: –the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), making it a crime to criticize the government, gave the prez authority to detain, deport aliens –Trading with the Enemies Act of 1917 and Espionage and Sedition Act of 1917 Congress gave Wilson authority to oversee trade, declare embargoes, etc. and made it a crime to “hinder” the war effort –Lincoln’s suspension of civil law in parts of the country and of habeas corpus in 1861 (see Ex Parte Merryman (1861), in which the S.C. ruled the suspension unconstitutional; Ex Parte Milligan (1866), in which the S.C. ruled that military trials of civilians when civil courts were capable of functioning was illegal). What are the conditions for presidential leadership/success in foreign policy? –what counts as “presidential leadership”? –action-forcing vs. action-blocking authorities

Congressional goals MCs assumed to want to (1) get reelected; (2) promote own career; (3) create good public policy Reelection strategies include (1) advertizing; (2) position-taking; (3) credit-claiming –how does foreign policy fit? Progressive ambition requires expanding one’s reputation to a wider electorate –how does foreign policy fit? What does “good public policy” mean in foreign policy/security? –American attitudes toward risk? –Congressional accountability?

Managing the president Presidents as agents of the American people in foreign/security policies Congress as (1) institutional checks; (2) oversight agents on presidential action in foreign/security policies The public suffers from –hidden information –hidden action –Madison’s dilemma –Collective action problem