PSC
313 American Executive
Fall 2006
Professor: Steve Borrelli
Office: 307 ten Hoor, 348-3802
(voicemail)
Office
Hours: Tuesdays 2 – 4 PM; Fridays 1 – 3
PM; and by appointment
Email: sborrell@bama.ua.edu
My personal Webpage: bama.ua.edu/~sborrell (NOTE: you can precede this with http://, but you do
NOT precede it with "www")
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This is an intermediate-level discussion of the U.S. Presidency: its origins and development over the last 200+ years, the politics of presidential nominations and general elections, the construction and current structure of the mini-bureaucracy of advisers and aides surrounding the president, the president’s role as CEO of the Federal Bureaucracy, and his relations with Congress and the Federal Courts. A running theme will be assessing the contributions of the individual president’s personality and leadership style, historical circumstances, and institutional factors (both relations with other branches and dynamics within the executive branch) to the president’s ultimate success.
COURSE PREREQUISITES
A basic familiarity with the
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Upon successful completion of the course students will
1.) Understand the debates at the Constitutional Convention regarding the form the American Executive would take and the powers it would exercise, as well as current debates about reforming the systems for nominating and electing presidents;
2.) Know the key events and movements that shaped the modern presidency, and the contributions of individual presidents;
3.) Understand the roles of, and relationships between the President, the White House Office, the Executive Office of the President, the Cabinet and the rest of the Executive Branch, and how they help the president wield the “executive power” and relate to various subordinates and constituencies;
4.) Understand the history and both the potential and limitations of the president’s relationships with the mass media and with the public;
5.) Understand both the potential and limitations of the President’s role in the legislative process, how the president tries to construct and promote a legislative program, influence members of Congress, and respond to congressional initiatives;
6.) Understand the Supreme Court’s continuous role in defining presidential power, and how the President in turn has tried to influence the Court through appointments and government litigation;
7.) Be an informed and experienced participant in current academic and practical debates about the nature, structure, functioning, and powers of the US Presidency; have also gained experience responding to other students’ questions and comments in a genuine dialogue rather than simply answering instructor-generated questions.
George Edwards and
Stephen Wayne, Presidential
Leadership: Politics and Policymaking
(7th Edition).
Richard Ellis and Michael Nelson, eds., Debating the
Presidency.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
1.) Exams: There are five sections of the course, each with its own pretest (on which everyone who attends and takes the test that day gets 100% regardless of how many correct answers they actually get) and its own concluding posttest exam.
The five pretests are worth, collectively, 10% of the final course grade. There will be no makeups allowed for missed pretests.
The five posttest
exams are worth,
collectively, 50% of the final course grade, and will occur
during class (30 min.) on the following dates:
Wednesday, September 20th
Monday, October 9th
Monday, October 30th
Wednesday, November
29th
Thursday, December 14th
(9 AM—during scheduled final exam periods)
2.) Class Participation: Although appropriate questions or comments are welcome at any time, on most of the Fridays during the semester (beginning September 8) we will have special “Discussion Days” in which students will contribute their own comments and opinions on the debates featured in the Debating the Presidency text (the schedule of topics and DTP chapters is listed below). The quantity and quality of student participation in these debates will be monitored carefully, and quality and quantity will be weighted equally in the determination of the students’ participation scores.
Students who choose not to participate orally on Fridays, and/or students who want the opportunity to make additional comments on the debate topics, will have the next three days (ending midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning) weekend to contribute their comments online, in response to posted discussion questions on Web-CT.
Overall, combined
online and oral participation will count for 25% of the student’s final grade.
3.) Paper Assignment: “Adopt an Executive Order.” On Friday, November 3rd, I will post a list of presidential executive orders from the last 30 years. Each student will select the one whose issuance date (month and day, ignoring year) is closest to their birthday, and will write a 5-6 pp. report about the background, history, context, legal justification for, content of, and policy and political effects of the assigned order.
The paper will be
worth 15% of the student’s final course grade.
The paper will be due Friday December 1 at 4:45 PM.
NOTE ON ACADEMIC
HONESTY
Copying or paraphrasing from a “ published”
source (this includes personal and private websites that are not your own) or
another student without acknowledgement is academic fraud and will be dealt
with according to University guidelines. These guidelines include penalties as
severe as expulsion from the University.
DISABILITY POLICY
If you have a disability that requires special accommodations in this class you need to contact the Office of Disability Services, 133B Martha Parham East, 348-4285 (or ods@bama.edu). The Office of Disability Services will work with you and me to come up with specific plan that will meet your needs.
ORDER OF TOPICS AND
PART I. Constitutional Origins
of the Presidency; the
History of the Presidency
Begins August 23rd,
ends with test on September 20th.
Textbook
September 8 debate
topics: Framers on the Modern
Presidency, and the Impeachment Process (based
on Ellis and Nelson, Chapters 1 and 4)
September 15 debate
topic: Individual Psychology vs.
Historical Circumstances in the Study of the Presidency (based on Ellis and Nelson, Chapter 11)
PART II: Presidential Nomination
and Election System;
Presidency, the Media and
the Public
Begins September 20, ends with test on October 9th
Textbook
September 29th
debate topics: Reforming the Nominating
System and the Electoral College (based on Ellis and Nelson, Chapters 2 and 3)
October 6th
debate topic: Media Toughness (based on
Ellis and Nelson, Chapter 5)
PART III.
The White House Office, the Executive Office of the President, and the
Executive Branch
Begins October 9th,
ends with test on October 30th
Textbook
October 13th
debate topic: Executive Privilege (based
on Ellis and Nelson, Chapter 9)
October 20th
debate topic: White House Staff vs.
Cabinet (based on Ellis and Nelson, Chapter 10)
PART IV: Presidency, Congress,
and the Judiciary
Begins November 1,
ends with test on November 29th
Textbook
November
3rd debate topic: Who
Represents the Public Better, Congress or the President? (based on Ellis and Nelson, Chapter 6)
November 10th
debate topic: Presidential Power in
Judicial Appointments (based on Ellis and Nelson, Chapter 8)
PART V: The Future of the
Presidency: Is Bush’s Legacy a More
Unilateral Presidency?
Begins November 29th,
ends with test on Final Exam Day (December 14th at 9 AM)
Textbook
December 1st
debate topic: Do all great presidents
advance democracy? (based
on Ellis and Nelson, Chapter 12)
December 8th
debate topic: Presidential Usurpation of
the War Powers? (based on Ellis and
Nelson, Chapter 7)