Strategic Responsiveness: How Congress Confronts Presidential Power

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Strategic Responsiveness: How Congress Confronts Presidential Power

by Scott H Ainsworth, Brian M Harward and Kenneth W Moffett

University of Michigan Press, 2025

ISBNs

Cloth: 978-0-472-07741-0

Paper: 978-0-472-05741-2

eISBN: 978-0-472-90501-0 (OA)

About the Book

Because the constitutional separation of powers often leads to delay or obstruction rather than coordinated policymaking, U.S. presidents are increasingly acting unilaterally to move policy. With the issuance of executive orders, signing statements, and policy memoranda, unilateralism has become a defining feature of the American presidency. Can Congress effectively use checks and balances to counter presidential unilateralism?

Strategic Responsiveness takes a theoretically developed and empirically oriented approach— situated within legal and historical contexts—to explore the system of separated powers. The authors find that Congress is not as weak as many perceive it to be and show how members of Congress often anticipate individualized policy loss and choose to respond. These policy struggles shape the constitutional order as surely as broad, statutory constraints might. While the aggrandizement of the presidency and the usurpation of congressional control are not countered, ordinary policy losses are. For members and senators, presidential overreach is fine as long as the policy wins continue, but policy losses may motivate members to reassert congressional prerogatives in policymaking through increased oversight. Strategic Responsiveness reveals how profoundly important policy-level disputes are in the politics of maintaining a particular constitutional order.

About the Author

Scott H. Ainsworth is Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia.
Brian M. Harward is Professor of Political Science at Allegheny College.
Kenneth W. Moffett is Former Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Reviews

Ainsworth, Harward, and Moffett show that the Congress has—and uses—any number of ways to respond to unilateral actions by presidents. Sometimes these amplify, but often they pushback against presidential choices. Strategic Responsiveness is sure to provoke its own responses in this era of growing presidential unilateralism.

— John H. Aldrich, Duke University

Strategic Responsiveness addresses a topic of considerable concern to scholars and popular commentators alike, suggesting a broad applicability of the book, and does so in a rigorous scholarly manner employing both formal theoretic and empirical approaches. Particularly in an era of divided government, this book's focus on unilateral actions will be of interest to a general readership.

— David Darmofal, University of South Carolina

"As tensions accelerate between the Trump administration and Congress, this timely book delves deeply into the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government. . . While this book is best suited for scholars of U.S. government and policy, others with an interest in the current political environment will find this study deeply informative."— Thomas Karel, Library Journal

"Through innovative, multidimensional spatial models of legislative bargaining, the authors offer new explanations for why "members of Congress do push back when unilateral efforts create policy losses that are electorally problematic. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty."— J. Farrier, Choice

“The core contribution of the book is the policy dimension that the authors add to their legislative model…By expanding the existing unidimensional models of legislating, the authors challenge existing notions of congressional responses to unilateralism.”

— Meredith McLain, Presidential Studies Quarterly