For this week's look at the national government:
From the section on the development of executive power:
- What is the executive branch and what functions does it serve?
- What are the different aspects of executive power?
- What is the ultimate source of executive power?
- What titles do we use to refer to chief executives? Why are these titles meaningful?
- What does it matter if the executive is headed by one person or by multiple people?
- What aspects of executive power did the Magna Carta Attempt to limit? How did it intend to do so? Was it successful?
- What additional limitations did the Petition of Right and the British
Bill of Rights attempt to impose on executive/monarchic power? Were they
successful? Why or why not?
- Be able to describe the factors that led to an increase in executive
power over British history. In what ways did the monarch become more
powerful?
- Be familiar with the growth of the administrative state.
- What arguments did monarchs - especially the Stuarts - use to justify their power?
- What was the general attitude the Stuarts had towards parliament?
- How did Parliament deal with the Stuarts?
- What grievances did the colonists have with the British monarch? What
specific usurpations of executive power dis they complain about? Why are
these significant?
From the section on Article 2 of the US Constitution:
- What were the principle debates in the constitutional convention over the design of the US executive branch?
- What did Alexander Hamilton say about the proper design of the executive?
- What concerns did the Anti-Federalists have about the executive branch and the presidency in particular?
- Be able to define the subject matter of each of the sections in Article Two?
- Which parts of Article Two have been modified by constitutional amendments?
- How many specific executive positions are mentioned in the Constitution? Which are not?
- How is the president elected to office? How has this process changed over time?
- What controversy exists over the vested clause in Article Two?
- What autonomy does the Constitution grants the presidency?
What can
the president do without being limited by the other two branches?
- What control does the president have over the bureaucracy? Congress? The Federal Courts?
- What is the extent of the president's power as commander-in-chief?
What can he do? What can he not do? Where are there major controversies?
- What controversies exist regarding the communications presidents have with other members of the executive branch?
- In what areas does the president have greater latitude than others?
- What is the extent of the president's powers of appointment? What are the principle controversies regarding this power?
- What does the Constitution say regarding presidential advising?
- What parts of the Constitution protect the president - and the executive overall - from the other two branches?
- What parts of the Constitution allow the president - and the executive
branch itself - to limit the powers of the other two branches?
- What specific departments and agencies are established in Article 2 of the Constitution?
From the section on the evolution of the executive branch since the ratification of the Constitution:
- Be familiar with the original design of the executive branch as well as the impact of George Washington on the office.
- How have different presidents interpreted the Constitution regarding the powers of the office?
- What is the size of the executive branch now? Be able to provide numbers.
- What factors explain the rise of the executive branch over history?
- What are the more important executive positions - those not established in the Constitution - and what do they do?
- Be familiar with the three institutions that provide advice and
assistance to the president. What are their unique roles? Why did the
Senate - despite the Constitution - not become a principal advisory
institution to the presidency?
- Which agencies contain the closest and most loyal advisers to the president?
- What relationships exist between executive agencies and other
institutions like the legislature and interest groups? Who controls the
bureaucracy?
- What relationship does the president have with the bureaucracy? What
factors make it difficult for presidents to directly control the
bureaucracy?
- What factors grant the bureaucracy strength? What controls do the other branches have over the bureaucracy?
- Be familiar with the eras of the presidency, especially the modern
presidency. How has the power of the presidency been transformed in
recent history?
- What is the "post-modern" presidency? Is the presidency losing strength?
- What factors condition the relationship between the president and the general population?
