Political Science Quarterly · 1991 · 325 citations · 0 references
Social SciencesPolitical ScienceAmerican PoliticsLegislative PoliticsLegislative StudiesExecutive-legislative RelationsLegislative Decision-makingLegislative-executive RelationsPresidential ControlPresidential PowersCongressional BehaviorCongressional RelationsExecutive Branch AuthorityExecutive Branch PolicymakingLegislative-executive CooperationPresidential BargainingPresidential Influence On LegislationPresidential Influence Over Legislation
The executive branch’s success in steering legislation is increasingly seen as a key measure of presidential performance, yet scholars debate how such victories are achieved, and Bond and Fleisher argue that factors beyond presidential control—particularly congressional composition—have been overlooked. The authors aim to determine the conditions that enable the executive to prevail, regardless of whether success stems from presidential power or other factors. They analyze roll‑call votes from 1953‑1984 to assess presidential success. They find that congressional partisan and ideological composition, rather than presidential bargaining power or popularity, is the primary determinant of executive success.
In recent years, the executive branch's ability to maneuver legislation through Congress has become the measure of presidential success or failure. Although the victor of legislative battles is often readily discernible, debate is growing over how such victories are achieved. In The President in the Legislative Arena, Jon R. Bond and Richard Fleisher depart dramatically from the concern with presidential influence that has dominated research on presidential-congressional relations for the past thirty years. Of the many possible factors involved in presidential success, those beyond presidential control have long been deemed unworthy of study. Bond and Fleisher disagree. Turning to democratic theory, they insist that it is vitally important to understand the conditions under which the executive brance prevails, regardless of the source of that success. Accordingly, they provide a thorough and unprecedented analysis of presidential success on congressional roll-call votes from 1953 through 1984. Their research demonstrates that the degree of cooperation between the two branches is much more systematically linked to the partisan and ideological makeup of Congress than to the president's bargaining ability and popularity. Thus the composition of Congress inherited by the president is the single most significant determinant of the success or failure of the executive branch.