Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy > Vol 1 > Issue 1

Beyond the Base: Presidents, Partisan Approval, and the Political Economy of Unilateral Action

Dino Christenson, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Boston University, USA, dinopc@bu.edu , Douglas Kriner, Clinton Rossiter Professor in American Institutions, Department of Government, Cornell University, USA, kriner@cornell.edu
 
Suggested Citation
Dino Christenson and Douglas Kriner (2020), "Beyond the Base: Presidents, Partisan Approval, and the Political Economy of Unilateral Action", Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy: Vol. 1: No. 1, pp 79-103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/112.00000005

Publication Date: 10 Mar 2020
© 2020 D. Christenson and D. Kriner
 
Subjects
Executive Politics,  Presidential Politics,  Public Opinion,  Political Parties,  Models for count data
 
Keywords
Unilateral actionpresidential approvalpartisanshipparty baseeconomydivided governmentpublic opinion
 

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In this article:
Unilateral Action and Partisan Approval 
The Moderating Role of Economic Strength 
Trumpian Exceptionalism? 
Data 
Methods 
Results 
Conclusion 
References 

Abstract

Most accounts of the unilateral presidency emphasize the institutional barriers that severely limit the ability of Congress and the courts to check executive action. An emerging literature argues that political checks, including public opinion, may serve as an important, but informal constraint. However, the empirical evidence for such a popular check is limited. We argue that presidents have incentives to be particularly responsive to their popular standing beyond their party's base. Rather a president's approval ratings among independents and opposition partisans will most influence the likelihood of pushback from would-be opponents in Congress, which can further erode public support for the administration and its policies. Presidents' anticipatory calculations also vary with the health of the economy. A strong economy allows presidents to increasingly resort to unilateral action in periods of divided government and to be less concerned with their approval ratings. By contrast, a weak economy heightens responsiveness to public opinion and blunts the positive effect of divided government on executive action. We find strong support for our hypotheses using a new database of executive action, broadly defined, that achieved some threshold of media coverage from 1977 to 2018. Finally, we explore the extent to which President Trump has employed his unilateral power differently than his predecessors. While we find that Trump has issued more major executive actions than most of his predecessors, ceteris paribus, we find little evidence that he is less responsive to public opinion.

DOI:10.1561/112.00000005

Companion

Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy, Volume 1, Issue 1 Special issue - The Political Economy of Executive Politics
See the other articles that are part of this special issue.