Presidential Power and Unilateral Decision-Making
Summary
Presidential power and unilateral decision-making represent a core strand of contemporary scholarship on executive authority. At its heart are the legal and institutional devices through which a head of state can issue directives, orders or memoranda that bypass or limit legislative input. These powers, ranging from executive orders to proclamations, are grounded in constitutional prerogatives and refined through historical practice. Theoretical debates centre on the tension between the separation of powers and the first-mover advantage enjoyed by presidents as chief executives. Unilateral actions offer agility and direct policy delivery, especially in areas such as foreign affairs or national security, but also raise questions about democratic accountability, institutional checks and the enduring legacy of presidential decisions once power passes to successors. These dynamics are observed in presidential systems worldwide, with practical implications for governance, democratic resilience and policy durability.
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Presidential Power and Unilateral Decision-Making publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in presidential power and unilateral decision-making across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Unilateral action: Presidential decision-making conducted without formal approval from the legislature.
Executive order: A legally binding directive issued by the president to manage operations of the federal government.
Discretion: The practical scope of freedom the president has to select policy actions within legal and institutional constraints.
Policy immutability: The degree to which a policy resists reversal or modification by subsequent administrations.
References
- Presidential Unilateral Power. Annual Review of Political Science (2020).
- Executive action that lasts. Journal of Public Policy (2024).
- Public Responses to Unilateral Policymaking. Journal of Experimental Political Science (2024).
- Going green or making green? The effects of partisanship and inflation on environmental executive orders, 1945−2020. Presidential Studies Quarterly (2023).
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