POLSCI 318 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Robert A. Dahl, Tyrant
4 May 2018
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Congress and the President
10-14-16 Lecture Notes – Neustadt and Presidential Power
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x Neustadt defines power: power to persuade actors within the political system
x 1957, Robert Dahl – tried to osolidate a defiitio of poer to allo us to opare the poer of
actors in the political system
o Formulates a conception of power
o A has poer oer B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not
otherise do
o Examples that Dahl points to: when professors request students to read something over the
weekend – the extent that the students do read that thing – that is the measure of the power
o Negative power – when parents ask son to mow the lawn, but the son goes swimming
x Presidets poer oer Cogress ad the ureaura – to get Congress and bureaucracy to do
soethig that the ouldt do otherise
x Dahl wants to also discuss the sources of this power, the amount or extent of that power over the
other actor
x In terms of the president, we can think of the formal and informal sources of his power
o Patronage – ability to give political favors, give appointments
o Constitutional veto – only formal legislative power that the President has
o Possibility for the President to call a White House conference – not as common anymore, but is
a atioal eetig that dras pulis attetio to a partiular issue
▪ A way to bypass Congress, who is usually relied on to get to the constituency
o Influence with the national electorate – ability to go public
o Charisma, ability to work with others, and other personal traits
x Instruments of wielding power is actually exercising those powers – actually vetoing, so on
x Importance of listing these instruments – MoCs resposes to those instruments can be a measure of
how much power the President actually has
o Is the President able to convince them with the veto power to kill the bill?
o Is he able to convince Congress to hold hearings on a particular agenda?
o The answers to these questions can be represented by probability statements
▪ The amount of power that the President has is conditional on the congressional
response
x Studies of presidential power tend to focus on the individual psychology of the president, whereas
studies of Congress are focused on the systematic determinants of votes, the number of bills
introduced, institutional concepts such as polarization
x Since the president is just one person, we tend to treat him as an individual
x Institutionally, we can also treat the president as a massive institution
x Neustadt – psychologically examines presidents and their effectiveness
x Modern president is expected to accomplish things that are outside of the formal powers of the office
itself
o Ex: pass a program
o Bore out of oters isuderstadig of the presidets atual resposiilities ad that the
legislative process is centered on Congress
o President is aware of this pressure
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