American Presidency
How Presidents can influence the policymaking process to suit their needs
constitution has created the executive branch and the executive power vested in the hands of the president. In fact, the president cannot act in isolation in running the executive branch. The president depends on the executive office staff and agencies like office of management and council of economic advisors and the policy development offices like the National Security Council. Further, the president selects individual cabinet members who lead the cabinet departments and other non-cabinet-level agencies. All these are mandated to interpret and implement laws passed by congress. All these departments act as advisors, formulating policies, and identifying issues for presidential consideration. In theory, all these divisions of the executive branch function in furthering the goals set by the president.
The presidents
The presidents are the heads of the federal executive branch. As strong as this might sound, the founders of the country created three different government branches and limited the president's powers to ensure he does not influence the policy making process to suit his needs over the nation. However, the president is still powerful in a number of ways and his powers are limited in some ways (Rose, 2007).
Presidents have numerous roles in policymaking. In the context of the unofficial chief of the state, the president is viewed as the symbol of the country. As the official chief executive, he manages the executive and cabinet branches. The president is also the commander in chief of the armed forces, and thus he is at the official top rank of the military in the country. The constitution vests the president with additional powers, like appointing ambassadors and treaties with foreign countries. All these presidential powers are subject to the consent and advice of the Senate.
Agenda setting
A key tool that presidents can use to influence the policymaking is the ability to place issues on the national agenda and provide a recommended course of action. The presidency is all about framing agendas. The president can influence setting the national agenda through their role as the country leaders and the volume of attention given to presidential decisions, actions, and policy recommendations. Unlike interest groups and other politicians, presidents do not have to work hard to receive media coverage. Whether it is the release of the president's policy proposal, annual state address, a photo shoot, press conference, or release of a report, president's message is continually published. Additionally, the party leader, vice president or the cabinet officers can deliver the president's message (Hao, 2010).
The concept of going public involves appealing directly to the citizens to influence the legislative debates and focus on a certain issue. While doing this, presidents can use support from their country's citizens to obtain the attention of the Congress while swaying the votes of policy decisions. Since the Congress members are more concerned about pleasing their constituencies to gain another chance for re-election, the president seeks the support of the third party: the public, to coerce his politicians to accept his preferences.
It is often advantageous for the presidents to plea an item on the policy agenda in a minimal public manner. For instance, in case a policy is controversial with the public or if the president's party members disagree with his proposal, it can be more effective to promote a policy behind the scenes. The president can carefully let Congress members know the favored policies directly or via intermediaries. Using a combination of threats to members' interests and promises of favors, presidents can influence the outcomes of policy debates in Congress even with no need to go public (Mitchell, 2010).
Besides deciding whether to approach, Congress behind the scenes or publicly, presidents must choose whether to present a preferred policy with less or more detail. A president can present a policy more broadly using contemporary guidelines or principles, or through proposed legislation presented to Congress. All the methods that president uses to convey his goals have pros and cons. If the president presents a policy in a broad manner, Congress can interpret the policy in a manner that the president dislikes. However, if the president presents a specified draft or proposal to the Congress, members of the Congress can view the act as infringing their legislative role and resist working with him.
The success of presidents in nationalizing their policy issues and resolving them according to their preferences relies partly on the extent of the president's available political capital. Political capital refers to the strength of the presidential popularity and his party in Congress and various contexts. Congressional members...
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