The “Two Presidencies” Thesis and New Institutionalism:

Lessons From An Old Thesis For a New School

Michael A. Cole Department of Public and International Affairs

George Mason University

American Politics, GOVT 510 Dr. Robert Dudley 12 December 2005

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The “Two Presidencies” Thesis and New Institutionalism:

Lessons From An Old Thesis For a New School

“Ever since George Washington, the interaction between Congress and the president

has not only fascinated political observers but usually determined the course of

American public policy. No relationship in American politics is more important.”1

The current political science literature draws attention to no dominant model of

the presidency as it once did to Aaron Wildavsky’s “two presidencies” thesis. The thesis

fuelled extensive research and gave rise to its own body of literature characterizing the

president as the leader in foreign and defense affairs, with implications for Congressional

and policy studies. Decades of research saw the thesis’ central claim moderated by

changes in the balance of executive and Congressional power, the literature’s methods

failed to move beyond power measurements to a full explication of the presidency, and as

an analytical tool the thesis remains unequal to the task of explaining the dynamic

process of policy formation. However, the thesis’ basic claim remains valid if still

moderated, and like a good antique, it could take on new life when placed in a

contemporary setting. The growing school of new institutionalism exhibits qualities the

“two presidencies” thesis failed to develop, but lacks the thesis’ clarity and strengths in

measurement. By adopting new institutionalism’s nuanced and highly specific portrayal

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of foreign and defense policy as a product of interaction between the President and

Congress, and retaining the “two presidencies” policy typologies, measurement tools, and

inclination toward executive power, further research could yield a more realistic

presidential model and a more useful analytical tool.

Aaron Wildavsky devised the “two presidencies” thesis in the mid-1960s to

depart from the longstanding historical approach to the study of presidents, in which

presidents and their administrations are judged and ranked individually. Political science

required an analytical tool to identify patterns in executive branch behavior across time

and from one administration to the next.

“During the past thirty years, this thesis has been subject to numerous theoretical

and empirical arguments and interpretations. The literature has developed to such

an extent that an entire collection of research on the two presidencies appeared

(Shull 1991). Up to this point, much of our understanding of presidential-

Congressional relations in the post World War II era has been guided by

cumulative research on the two presidencies.”2

Prominent “two presidencies” researchers note the easy utility of the thesis’ two-part

policy-area typology (domestic and foreign)3; and Wildavsky himself notes the

“somewhat deceptive ease with which data can be collected and applied to the problem,”4

most often using Congressional Quarterly roll call vote-counts.5 Although critics have

uncovered serious flaws in the “two presidencies” thesis, and developments since the

1960s have changed the presidency as Wildavsky knew it, it remains a useful foundation

on which to build an understanding of the executive.

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At its publication,* the “two presidencies” thesis rested on data from 1961

showing that in roll call votes on legislation addressing foreign and defense policy

between the 1930’s Neutrality Legislation and the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential

preferences almost always prevailed.6 (Specifically, Congress defeated presidential

preferences in only thirty per cent of relevant votes compared to sixty per cent of votes on

domestic legislation).7 Briefly, the thesis states: “The United States has one president,

but it has two presidencies; one presidency is for domestic affairs, and the other is

concerned with defense and foreign policy.” 8 In the context of the three-branch system,

“The president’s normal problem with domestic policy is to get Congressional

support for the programs he prefers. In foreign affairs, in contrast, he can almost

always get support for policies that he believes will protect the nation – but his

problem is to find a viable policy.”9

The model posited by the “two presidencies” thesis has far-reaching implications for

understandings of the executive branch. This brief summary of the thesis suggests a

timeline for administrations’ developmental behavior in which presidencies are shaped by

the office (shifting focus from domestic to foreign policy leadership as strength in the

latter is discovered), and in which executive-legislative relations are characterized by

tension or accord, each according to the office-holder’s response to the contours of the

position thus construed. It also points toward a distinctly empowered president, granted

institutional and intellectual tools to formulate policy from whole cloth and assert his

* “The Two Presidencies” was originally printed in Trans-Action, 4 (December 1966): 7-14, and is quoted here from The Two Presidencies: A Quarter Century Assessment (1991) with accompanying commentary.

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preferences within a system that both requires and facilitates outside political support. In

this model, all presidents are “foreign policy presidents.” Wildavsky argues, “Except for

occasional questions of domestic prosperity and for civil rights, foreign affairs have

consistently been a higher priority for presidents.”10 Interior Secretary Stewart Udall

once complained that President Kennedy was “imprisoned by Berlin,”11 unable or

unwilling to discuss domestic concerns.

The thesis has consequences for many areas of politics and policy. Using the

thesis, the content of foreign policy is more easily predicted by noting presidents’

expressed preferences, except in cases of extreme anomalies, by observers domestic and

foreign (friendly and unfriendly). In addition, political parties fielding presidential

candidates adapt themselves to form election-winning foreign policy platforms.

Members of Congress cease seeking political and electoral advantage by explaining their

own foreign policy perspectives and adhere to strict spheres of policy influence,

capitalizing on the public’s likewise acquiescence to presidential leadership, especially in

times of crisis. Special interests seek advantage less by the force of their arguments than

by “organizing political activity in order to affect [the content of presidents’] agenda.”12

For presidents’ purposes, foreign and defense policies are distinct from domestic

policies in urgency and consequence. Whereas world events once moved slowly, events

and their consequences now follow closely on top of one another; presidents increasingly

expect to face the consequences of their decisions or failures to act before their

successor’s arrival.13 Domestic policy appears comparatively short-lived and retractable

beside foreign alliances, war and other functions of foreign affairs, the effects of which

are long-lived, and often costly. The “two presidencies” thesis emphasizes the increased

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danger of the Cold War and the nuclear age, comparing it to preceding periods’ more

conventional exigency, and concludes that “the world has become a much more

dangerous place.”14

“The forces impelling presidents to be concerned with the widest range of foreign

and defense policies also affect the ways in which they calculate their power stakes.

As Kennedy used to say, ‘Domestic policy … can only defeat us; foreign policy

can kill us.’”15

Foreign and defense policy are of greater consequence to Americans’ safety and

prosperity than at any time since the founding of the Republic, and their importance has

increased accordingly. This assertion of the two policy areas’ increased relevance

discounts traditional models of Congressional-executive relations that emphasize the

division of powers as expounded in The Federalist.

Central to the “two presidencies” thesis is the belief that the executive is uniquely,

institutionally suited to leadership in the foreign and defense policy arenas. “Presidents

possess both the formal power to act and the knowledge that elites and the general public

expect them to act.”16 To this end, presidents use the tools of the executive branch

bureaucracy to obtain information more quickly and in greater quantity than Congress,

and develop internal policy shops to devise strategy with higher efficiency and

responsiveness to the problems at hand. 17 The executive’s constitutional authority and

institutional tools, the utility of which are magnified by the manifest weakness of its

rivals for power, place presidents at an advantage.

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“The Two Presidencies” compares the strengths and weaknesses of presidents’

competitors* for influence in the policy arena, and concludes that “potential opponents

are weak, divided, or believe that they should not control foreign policy.”18 The public

displays information and attention deficits, as well as inconstancy of opinion, and “it is

difficult to get operational policy directions from the general public.”19 Of Congress,

Wildavsky concludes,

“[Members] exercise power in foreign affairs. Yet they are ordinarily not serious

competitors with the president because they follow a self-denying ordinance. They

do not think it is their job to determine the nation’s defense policies … The few

congressmen who are expert in defense policy act, as Samuel P. Huntington says,

largely as lobbyists with the executive branch.”20

And like the public, Congress follows the president into conflict willingly and almost

without exception. If Congress or the military were effectively coordinated to present

policy alternatives (together with the Department of State or defense contracting firms),

and insisted upon their adoption, their force could be resisted by the president only with

difficulty.21 However, in 1966 as in 2005, only their coordination was less common than

their agreement.

The thesis’ claim that presidents are the most powerful actors affecting foreign

and defense policy is unsatisfying as a quantitative claim and as the basis of an

explanatory model. The literature must produce a provable, defensible model that more

* “The Two Presidencies” reviews capabilities of the Public, Special Interest Groups, Congress, the Military, the Military Industrial Complex, and the State Department.

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accurately reflects the dynamic character of the executive and the inter-branch

relationship.

“Many concepts have been used to describe presidential-congressional relations.

Success, support, concurrence, leadership, and influence all appear in the scholarly

literature … and sometimes are used interchangeably.”22

Wildavsky specifies success, positioning the branches as competitors for power.

“At one time, [Congressional Quarterly] measured success through its box score

indicator. C.Q. included in this measurement only the specific legislative requests

contained in the president’s public statements and whether or not Congress enacted

such measures within the same calendar year.”23

The model is unable to distinguish between important and trivial legislation, account for

bills processed across more than one calendar year, disaggregate the analysis to gauge

variations in power among Members, account for changes in presidents’ power as a

function of their popularity over time,24 or to reflect the political environment in which

votes are taken.25 The image presented is one of political stasis, as it cannot consider the

impact of partisanship and ideology in times of divided and united government,26 or the

uniquity of election year politics, among other frequent changes. Importantly,

measurement of roll call votes misses the committee stage, in which presidential intent

may be thwarted by procedural innovation27 without changing the title of a bill.

Concerned that “writers were quoting aggregate figures of presidential success without

adequately considering the substance of initiatives themselves or other qualitative or

quantitative factors that may influence the result,” C.Q. abandoned box scores after

1975.28

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These problems have been addressed with varying success in the intervening

decades, but dependence of the “two presidencies” on unconditioned statements of power

preclude a more useful, accurate model.

“The important point to note regarding the tendency to focus on a single interaction

[(namely, voting)] is that it ignores other aspects of presidential-congressional

relations in which both actors attempt to assert their respective preferences. Again,

research that takes such a one-dimensional focus fails to capture not only the

complexity but the diversity of presidential-congressional relations.”29

The “two presidencies” thesis succeeds spectacularly in eliciting discussion and research.

Its conclusion that presidents are powerful is valid, but it says very little. The particular

image of that power is of consequence to presidential models employed by political

science.

The “two presidencies” literature reflects wide acceptance of the thesis’ central

quantitative claim which, however problematic and limiting, has been re-proven and

qualified by research with increasingly specific terms and sophisticated measurements.30

Placed in the context of the greater political science literature, specialized studies of

Congress, the Presidency, and foreign policy escape two limitations of the thesis: its

tendency to pursue the degree of presidential dominance primarily by means of

quantitative methods, and its reliance on an inflexible concept of power. Paradoxically,

these constraints on the explanatory capacity of the “two presidencies” literature are also

strengths, lending clarity to its concepts and evidence to its limited conclusions.

However, clarity and evidence have not been sufficient to maintain “two presidencies”

scholarship through presidential crises and assertions of Congressional power.

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By accounting for variance of power over time and institutions’ distinctive

capacities to assert power, the “two presidencies” has the potential to develop into a

richer model of the presidency.

“How powerful is the president? What are the sources, characteristics and limits of

presidential strength? Writings on the strength of the presidency reflect a cyclic

pattern: from the late 1940s until the early 1960s, political scientists worried over

how to beef up an eighteenth century creation with the powers to face a twentieth

century situation; not surprisingly, the Johnson-Nixon years … precipitated a return

to the old worry about how to control the presidency. Discussing the nature of

presidential strength has been a constant analytical task …”31

Departures in the literature from the language of the “two presidencies” thesis, using the

New Institutionalism and the discipline’s traditional specializations, identify the means

by which branches exert influence on policy, the long-accepted condition of presidential

dominance notwithstanding. This need not be a departure from the “two presidencies”

model because they are in agreement. The literature through periods of relative

presidential strength and weakness is illustrative.

The “two presidencies” thesis used data representing the 1930s to 1961; a later

study extending the research through the 1970s discovered Wildavsky’s findings

remained valid but indicated decline in presidential power. As early as 1967 (90th

Congress), Senator J. William Fulbright indicated a Congressional preference to affect a

change.*

* From testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, 19__.

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“‘The authority of Congress in foreign policy has been eroding steadily since 1940

… and the erosion has created a significant constitutional imbalance. Many, if not

most, of the major decisions of American foreign policy in the era have been

executive decisions’ … In a crisis situation, Fulbright recognized, prompt action by

the President may be necessary but, he claimed, many times ‘the need of immediate

action has been exaggerated, resulting in mistakes which might have been avoided

by greater deliberation.’ Consultation, before or after the fact, briefings, and crisis-

induced resolutions endorsing executive actions are insufficient if Congress is to

participate fully in making policy; less consensus and more debate, even at the risk

of exposing basic conflicts over policy, is necessary to restore balance between the

executive and legislature.”32

Samuel Huntington’s 1961 model of Congress’s foreign policy work, placed beside

1976 research of Congress’s internal processes, illustrates change in a way that impacts

the “two presidencies” thesis. Huntington surmised,

“Congress processes structural issues of defense policy, while the executive branch

processes strategic issues … ‘Structural’ refers to financial, personnel, materiel,

and organizational decisions. ‘Strategic’ refers to program or use decisions.

Another way of stating the proposition is that Congressional activity increases

when the particular issue concerned is domestic, as opposed to foreign, in

character.”33

The analysis agrees with and applies specificity to the later “two presidencies” thesis, and

reflects the passivity decried by Senator Fulbright.

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By 1976, Edward Laurance concluded, “The Congressional defense decision-

making system described by Huntington and others … has significantly changed.”34

Congress was empowered by “decreased public perception of external threat” and public

reaction to the Vietnam War and other unpopular endeavors perceived to be executive-

led. In addition, Congress was rendered more effective in the defense policy arena by the

emergence of “non-D.O.D. defense policy alternatives;” an increased “non-military

committee role in defense policy-making” (including the Foreign Relations,

Appropriations, Atomic Energy, and Economic Joint Committees);35 “increased control

of military procurement;” a greater variety of policy alternatives caused by balanced

membership in the Senate Armed Services Committee; more substantial public debate on

national priorities; and the rise of a permanent anti-defense bloc among Members (in

place of the temporary issue-based coalitions of past periods).36

“Many observers have made the mistake of establishing too high a criterion for

acknowledging a changed Congressional role in defense policy. They point to a

lack of cancelled weapons systems as evidence of a ‘rubber-stamp’ or ‘business-as-

usual’ system. Among other things, this type of conclusion ignores the feedback

loop which continually causes D.O.D. to change in anticipation of Congressional

action. But if we broaden our definition of change, we see a Congress which

processes defense policy in a manner similar to agricultural, social welfare, and

labor policy.”37

Importantly, the position that the “two presidencies” thesis would be debunked did not

gain currency.

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Writing on the same topic before Laurance, Manley grants that events cause power-

shifts, but cautions,

“The growth of Presidential power in foreign affairs has been so great since WWII,

and the Presidency has so many advantages over Congress in this sphere, that it

would be naïve to predict a permanent alteration in the balance of power between

the executive and the legislative branches of government.”38

The branches ascend and decline, but each retains unique capacities and characteristics

through historical periods. Adequate models of the presidency (and of Congress and

policy-formation) will weather change by emphasizing the constants and providing for

vacillation.

The advent of new institutionalism promises descriptive tools for application to

the basic claims of the “two presidencies,” but it is in great need of the clarity and

evidentiary strength reflected in the “two presidencies” literature. The new

institutionalism was devised to “construct a new way of understanding American

politics”39 by adopting “a more flexible understanding of political culture.”40 It rejects a

mechanistic image of institutions, which will be helpful in understanding the presidency

and Congress, for example.

“We cannot understand politics without understanding institutions. But we cannot

understand institutions without understanding the ideas, the purposes, of those

historical persons who created them, and without understanding the broader

cultural values that sustained the institutions and made it possible for them to

persist.”41

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(Like Wildavsky’s reference to the Federalist, this neither accepts nor rejects images of

the Founders’ intent, but aims instead to account for the ideas and persons currently at

work; history is employed not to portray the past but for its facility in constructing

timelines and stories; and history is seen as the process by which institutions are engaged

in change and recreation). new institutionalism’s partisans assert the primacy of

legitimacy, loosely defined as the capacity of institutions to reflect values of the people

they affect. Institutions act (and change) to maintain legitimacy and to affect the

legitimacy of their competitors for power. Importantly, these machinations occur in the

context of cultural forces, both within institutions and nationally.

In one example of the school’s work, discovery of “the peculiar role that politics

played in shaping nineteenth-century social policy” led Theda Skocpol to diverge from

“the state-centered focus of her earlier work. Instead, she shifted to an account that

reflects the particular, unpredictable and contingent dimensions of American political

culture.”42 In the nomenclature of politics, a policy is a kind of idea. Traditional,

mechanistic analyses of politics and policy were not up to the task of explaining

Skocpol’s observation. new institutionalism proved useful as it endeavors to “see how

ideas and institutions develop in relation to each other in particular situations, because

neither ideas nor institutions exist in the absence of the other, and neither can be

understood without the other.”43 In the case of the presidency and foreign and defense

policy, the determination that presidents are dominant in policy creation does not

facilitate production of a presidential model that is thorough, accurate and lasting. It

neither explains nor describes presidents’ domestic policy work and Congress’s

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demonstrated capacity and desire to affect foreign and defense policy. New tools are

required.

New institutionalism serves a number of functions in presidential and

Congressional studies. In the modest amount of scholarship in this area from the 1970s

to the 1990s, “scholars set their sights on Congress’s role in foreign and defense policy

… less concerned with theory building than with arguing about Congress’s constitutional

prerogatives … or debating whether Congress is gaining or losing power relative to the

president.”44 James Lindsay and Randall Ripley advise that

“Research should seek to understand, explain, and – ideally – predict

Congressional behavior. Normative questions that can and should be addressed are

also inevitably raised by such research … Both the substance of what Congress

does and the procedures and politics by which it arrives at those results cry out for

careful analysis.”45

As Wildavsky first set out to prove presidential dominance in foreign and defense policy

by examining Congressional vote-tallies, so too will new institutionalism’s perspective

on Congressional legislative practices uncover something of nature of executive

dominance. New institutionalism leads Lindsay to tie together process and policy to

explore the ways Congress incorporates its preferences into foreign and defense policy,

often structuring presidential behavior and establishing feedback loops by which it retains

a place in the process of policy formation.

Consistent with the “two presidencies” thesis, “When Congress succeeds in

legislating the substance of U.S. foreign policy, the results are often less than meets the

eye … Most scholars see the [increasingly fractious and public] debates more as show

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than substance.”46 However, “From the vantage point of the new institutionalism …

attention to substantive policy legislation is insufficient.”47 Morris Fiorina notes that,

“Congress controls the bureaucracy, and the Congress gives us the kind of

bureaucracy it wants … Even when Congress delegates authority to executive

branch officials it may still structure the decision-making process so that its

preferred policies are chosen.”48

Conditions built into the life of Congress prohibit the kind of clearly defined power

enjoyed in foreign and defense policy by presidents and discourage Members from

pursuing the kind of substantive legislation emphasized by researchers (such as the

“homeland” security agency pursued by Congress before 2001 or Star Wars legislation

advanced by President Reagan). “Many members may judge the crafting of legislation to

be electorally unprofitable;” agency-oversight stretches the chambers’ resources, often

without benefit to government-functioning or electability; and punishment of violations

found by Congress’s “police-patrol” monitoring of the executive departments can be

difficult and politically costly if they are discovered at all.

“Procedural changes, then, constitute labor-saving devices. They can obviate the

need for substantive legislation or police-patrol oversight by ensuring that

Congressional preferences are built into executive branch decisions.”49

By installing innovations such as offices of inspectors general into executive

bureaucracies, or attaching reporting requirements to programs, for example, Congress

effectively creates a system of “fire-alarm” oversight that alerts members to issues of

interest. While procedural innovations serve members’ pursuits of re-election by

offsetting the opportunity costs of administrative oversight, procedural changes are also a

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powerful tool to make policy that forces executive department action into agreement with

legislative preferences. “Legislators know that ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound

of cure.’ Policy battles are most easily won if the disputed policy can be strangled in the

cradle.”50

If procedural innovations are considered as tools to govern through the “back

door,” it reflects that they are tools of influence rather than control or dominance.

Presidents remain strongly positioned for policy leadership for many of the reasons the

“two presidencies” literature identifies, but Congress makes use of the tools available to

it, and these must be noted to form a realistic picture of the environment in which

presidents operate. Lindsay identifies five forms of procedural innovation used to

influence foreign and defense policy: institution-making, the legislative veto, imposition

of consultative duties, new rules and procedures, and reporting requirements. Each of

these is flexible or lends itself to categorization to produce Congress’s preferences and

compensate for the bodies’ limited capabilities.

New institutionalists note that examples of procedural innovation are found in

nearly every piece of legislation that obtains a vote on the chambers’ floors, but

procedural innovations in foreign and defence policy carry particular weight due to the

high stakes of foreign policy (as in the “two presidencies”) and because Congress uses

them to assert its power contrary to executive preference in unconditioned power and

popular perception of presidential strength. Whereas new institutionalism easily

identifies legislative mechanisms such as procedural innovations, it fails to employ the

measurement tools used to good effect by “two presidencies” scholars, representing a

remediable weakness in the literature. If data were compiled on the use and utility of the

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procedural innovations that follow, it would serve as a valuable resource for modelling

the presidency and the inter-branch relationship, and for understanding Congressional

and bureaucratic behavior.

“The first type of procedural change creates new institutions inside the executive

branch that will be more sympathetic to the preferences of Congress. Here Congress

proceeds from a simple assumption about bureaucratic life: policies that don’t have

champions in the bureaucracy are doomed.”51 Lindsay uses Congress’s 1983 institution

of an Office of the Director of Operation Test and Evaluation to assure stringent, realistic

testing requirements for developing Pentagon weapons systems and to provide accurate

information about the systems’ success. Congress used its control over appropriations to

ensure compliance with the requirement, and the Office has succeeded in moderately

improving test planning. 52 Recent years have seen the institution of massive

bureaucracies, often counter to presidential preference, to establish the Department of

Homeland Security and reorganize the U.S. intelligence apparatus. Although President

Bush has spoken favourably of these reforms in public, his speeches follow executive

branch resistance traceable to the White House both before and after the 2001 terrorist

attacks on the U.S.

Lindsay places joint, simple, and concurrent resolutions under the heading

“legislative veto” because they enable Congress to retain discretion to permit or block

policies after they have been placed in the president’s hands. “All legislative vetoes

share the same basic quid pro quo: Congress delegates authority to the executive branch

to act but reserves the right to veto executive branch decisions.”53 The 1976 Arms Export

and Control Act stipulates that

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“the president the president must notify Congress of all major arms sales and

proposals and that Congress could block any sale by passing a concurrent

resolution within thirty days of the notification. The law further provided that the

president could waive the thirty-day notice, and thereby skirt Congress, by

invoking national security reasons. Presidents have invoked the waiver only twice

… Congress has never vetoed an arms sale.”54*

Again, Congressional power lies not in substantive results but in the forces that shape

executive action. Lindsay notes that

“Ford and Carter modified several arms sales to blunt criticism on Capitol Hill …

Three times between 1983 and 1985 the Reagan administration proposed selling

arms to Jordan, and all three times it withdrew the proposal because it judged the

package would not pass muster in Congress.”55

By forcing together bureaucratic bodies with competing preferences and

interests, Congress can introduce players that share its preferences into the decision-

making process, moulding policy and executive branch behavior from within. Instead of

“defeating” the president’s preferred legislation, Congress builds broad consultative

duties into policy to impose its own preferences. “Members also legislate themselves

into decision-making” by establishing executive-legislative consultations for specified

purposes.56

An example of the former is seen in the Department of Defense commercial

satellite program. When DoD presented its plan to obtain satellite capabilities, Congress

agreed with the assessment that the Department should have generous access to satellite

* Source published in 1994.

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communications, but it balked at the projected expense. Despite the executive branch

preference to pursue Congressionally approved objectives with a free hand, Congress

forced the Department to consult with the General Services Administration and Office of

Management and Budget. The result was a defense contracting initiative employed to

keep prices down. The Defense Information Satellite Agency manages commercially

owned satellites consistent with O.M.B. and G.S.A. recommendations, and the program’s

appropriations are regularly re-approved by Congress.

Congress often specifies the terms and procedures it believes will lead to policy

and executive branch behaviors it will favor. Conditional authorizations empower the

executive to “proceed as it sees fit so long as certain conditions are met.”57 Impositions

of rules often establish new terms and procedures for the bureaucracy to follow, as in

Congress’s redefinition of “unfair trade practices” and reassignment of investigatory

discretion concerning “dumping” in the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of

1988.58 By imposing rules, Congress can identify executive and agency practices

unaligned with Congressional preferences and pre-emptively prohibit them or

conditionally authorize them.

“Reporting requirements are designed to keep Congress abreast of executive

branch behavior and thereby give members of Congress the opportunity to mobilize

against policies they dislike.”59 The practice stands as a counterpoint to the executive’s

advantage in obtaining information required to identify problems and formulate policy.

Reporting requirements are seen in three forms. Notification provisions require “the

executive branch to inform Congress of agency actions or decisions,” such as the War

Powers Resolution;60 periodic reports require information on the status of programs at

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specified time intervals or at “milestones” in their progress, as seen in frequent testimony

by Pentagon officials on the Iraq War and Department of Homeland Security appointees

on that agency’s progress; one-time reports request studies of specific issues of concern

to Congress. In 1994, statutes contained “roughly 600 requirements for routine reports

on foreign policy … and in the 1980s Congress requested on average 500 reports each

year from DoD.”61 Reporting requirements have historically been valuable tools for

Congress’s work on foreign and defense policy, for which it has no independent means of

obtaining information, particularly in the intelligence arena. The Hughes-Ryan

Amendment of 1974 and the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 require presidents to

report on covert activities “in a timely manner,”62 and all but six covert operations have

been reported beforehand.63 “It is impossible to know how many covert operations die at

birth because of anticipated reactions,” but “in many respects Iran-contra suggests that

the reporting requirement does affect covert operations” by leading Congressional

committees to redirect funding and question the executive branch.64

These examples cover a broad range of foreign and defense concerns in which

Congress has asserted its preferences by confining the executive branch’s policy options

or forcing it to anticipate Congressional reaction, among other effects. Subtle uses of

power such as these are required for an accurate model of the presidency, but they can

neither be comprehended nor explained by the “two presidencies” literature’s former box

score measurement tools. However, new institutionalism scholars will proceed by

describing politics using lists of examples only at their own peril. Without bringing

together the contents of foreign and defense policy legislation to show patterns in

procedural innovations’ use, indicate their successes and failures, and identify the modes

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and patterns of executive response, new institutionalism will describe a great deal but

explain little.

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Notes:

1 Shull, Shaw 1 (Explaining Presidential-Congressional Relations) 2 ibidem 8 3 ibidem 32 4 Shull vii (The Two Presidencies: A Quarter Century Assessment) 5 Shull 81 (Presidential-Congressional Relations) 6 ibidem 18 7 Shull 18 (Presidential-Congressional Relations) 8 Shull 11 (The Two Presidencies: A Quarter Century Assessment) 9 ibidem 11 10 ibidem 13 11 ibidem 13 12 ibidem 25 13 ibidem 13 14 ibidem 12 15 ibidem 24 16 ibidem 14 17 ibidem 15 18 ibidem 15 19 ibidem 16 20 ibidem 17 21 ibidem 18 – Inclusion here of State and Military Industrial categories is the author’s speculation, added to Wildavsky’s proposition. 22 Shull, Shaw 77 23 ibidem 77 24 ibidem 78 25 ibidem 133 26 Edwards, Barrett and Peake (18) and McCormick, Wittkopf (19) 27 Lindsay 281 (Congress, Foreign Policy and The New Institutionalism) 28 Shull, Shaw 78 29 ibidem 134 30 ibidem 80 31 Shull 26 32 Manley 67-68 33 Laurance 215 34 ibidem 245 35 ibidem 230 36 ibidem 247 37 ibidem 250 38 Manley 69 39 Kloppenberg 125 40 ibidem 127 41 ibidem 128 42 ibidem 127

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43 ibidem 127 44 Lindsay, Ripley 418 45 ibidem 419 46 Lindsay 281 47 Lindsay 282 48 ibidem 282 49 Lindsay 284 50 Lindsay 284 51 Lindsay 286 52 Lindsay 289 53 Lindsay 286 54 Lindsay 290 55 Lindsay 290 56 Lindsay 286 57 Lindsay 286 58 Lindsay 287 59 Lindsay 287 60 Lindsay 287 61 Lindsay 287 62 Johnson 562 63 Lindsay 294 64 Lindsay 294