The President As Prisoner: A Structural Critique of the Carter and Reagan Years (Suny Series in the Presidency: Contemporary Issues) - Softcover

Grover, William F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791400913 ISBN 13: 9780791400913

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1989

Synopsis

This book focuses, not on the Constitutional balance of power between Congress and the White House-a focus that restricts analysis to questions of means-but on the more unsettling and often unexamined question of the ends of the presidency and American public policy. It offers a "structural theory" which links what a president can do to the underlying interests behind-and ideology of-the capitalist state. Structural theory insists upon an encounter between theories of the state and theories of the presidency, and in so doing steers the field of presidential studies into largely uncharted territory.

Grover explores the tradeoffs and limitations encountered by Presidents Carter and Reagan as they pursued the goals of economic prosperity and national security. He argues that the limitations imposed on the presidency are more complicated than the personal deficiencies of a particular person. Such structural limitations, Grover notes, are not merely constitutional but economic and statist. His analogy of the "president as prisoner" in this larger sense is compelling.

About this title

About the Author

William F. Grover is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Saint Michael's College in Winooski, Vermont. He has been a visiting instructor at both Moravian College and Smith College.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0791400913
• ISBN 13: 9780791400913
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 246