Essay Summary of American Presidency

The books Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership, The Presidency In A Separated System, and Debating the Presidency: Conflicting Perspectives on the American Executive attest that in the United States, the president has extensive powers. He or she functions in many capacities on tap. As a separated system, Charles O. Jones says that the American president essentially though the president in the United States is also the chief policymaker and leader of the president’s political party, they share the roles of head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces (Neustadt, 1991).

The president is thus the most unifying force in a political system in which power is highly dispersed, both within the government and between government and the people. The president and advisors also establish and administer national policies in such areas as social security, education, health, civil rights, and air and water pollution (Neustadt, 1991). Because of the importance of the United States in international affairs as the president is the chief diplomat himself, the US presidential race is followed with interest all over the world.

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Richard J. Ellis and Michael Nelson also point out that as the U. S. politics as a separated system affects the elected president, the US president, as political leader, appoints cabinet and subcabinet officers, federal judges, US attorneys, and ambassadors to important foreign countries and fills several thousand other jobs of varying importance. The president also administers an executive pork barrel or the distribution of federal funds to be spent on public works, military installations, and social programs.

The president and advisors also establish and administer national policies in such areas as social security, education, health, civil rights, and air and water pollution. The foremost prize of American politics is granted to anyone who qualifies for the position after a ballot vote. The election of the president of the United States every 4 years is the focal point of the American political process. Because of the importance of the United States in international affairs as the president is the chief diplomat himself, the US presidential race is followed with interest all over the world.

The formal qualifications for presidential candidacy, as limited by Article II Section 1 of the Constitution, are that the aspirant must be at least 14-year natural-born resident of the United States and must have reached the age of 35. the 25th Amendment to the Constitution details procedures for presidential and vice-presidential succession when there is a vacancy in either office that the president becomes incapacitated.

Should the presidency and the vice-presidency become vacant simultaneously, the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate, in that order are next in the line of succession, followed by members of the cabinet in a specified order. When war broke out in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson had announced a policy of neutrality for the United States. This policy was hard to maintain for a number of reasons. Most Americans sympathized with Britain and France because they were democratic countries.

It is the exemplary polity of the United States that buttresses the foreign policies established and engaged in by American presidents (Jones, 1994). How much a president is weighed down by either a domestic policy or a foreign policy is a matter of debate. From a pragmatic perspective, the ease of the president’s management of policies is contingent on persistence to the United States’ welfare in the long run. For instance, U. S.

military and foreign policies have been progressively maneuvered by the need to guarantee steadfast access to overseas oil, more than ever in the Middle East, and that as American imported oil dependence carries on to ironically strengthen our industries and conflict with some British-dependent Arab nations, the American forces will ever more find themselves waging war to guard oil-producing zones and supply routes. American leaders have preferred to “securitize” oil while preserving healthy international relations (Ellis and Nelson, 2006).

Foreign policies have also made American presidents wary of their consequences at the local level (Zernicke, 1994). No question about it; the 9/11 incident was the commencement of enlarged hostilities and vigilance as well. Security needs have turned our country into a police state. The bottomline of this is the tight spot between safety of private individuals and the world as a whole (Ellis and Nelson, 2006). Adds Richard Neustadt, the United States is a natural businesswoman too if modern capitalism is any indication. The United States is one of the four huge countries that accounted for more than two-thirds of total world exports.

The president truly accustomed to this separated system seems to partake not merely the powers but the country’s resources as he welcomes the idea of internationalism because it is what will make most of the Americans’ lives easy however hard it may be for him to sustain the strength of the U. S. dollar in the international market. The American economy has been a symbol of the wealth of a nation. The efforts of our forefathers and present geniuses have created economic values, which drive the presidents to be protective of local interests in the global village (Neustadt, 1991).

Historically, as the United States grew stronger economically, its leaders continued to favor a policy of expansion. The rapid growth of industry created a need for markets for American manufactured goods and a need for raw materials (Ellis and Nelson, 2006). Moreover, several prominent Americans believed that expansion would demonstrate American power and greatness. It was the destiny of the United States, they argued, to become a great power, and this meant extending American influence to other lands and raising the American flag on distant shores.

It may not be easy to carry out foreign policies for a single president that may need to contend with a legion more of leaders in the international arena, but what his painstaking efforts make of his image will be an easy preference for the people that put him in the White House (Neustadt, 1991). Many international allies resented the growing influence and power of the United States. They felt their neighbor to the north had turned from a protector to an aggressor. But by its role in the Caribbean, in particular, the United States revealed its strength as a nation.

In only a little more than a century it had grown from an infant republic to a major power in international affairs (Ellis and Nelson, 2006). Richard Neustadt, Charles O. Jones, Richard J. Ellis and Michael Nelson prove that Americans cannot deny the fact that in our political experiences, the successive change in political leadership led to anything but an improvement in the lives of the people. The domestic policies had improved education and had built housing, schools, roads, and railways. But on a larger scale, federalism just proves that the American polity is the most influential political event in world history.

It provided for the actualization of the ideals and principles of such political thinkers as John Locke, Rousseau, and many others (Jones, 1994). The achievement of independence, adoption of the Constitution, and the creation of the republic served as lessons to other people in their struggle to build their nation. The success of the federal republic proved that individual states could be united under a central government but still free to act in order to solve their internal problems (Neustadt, 1991).

We have been living under representative democracy, which basically means that we have elected presidents among a variety of leaders to represent us, to give us voice in forums, and then periodically we have judged well they represented us. American polity, in the very form of the Constitution, gives the world a mindset miraculous in the era of revolutions; that if we value freedom and independence, if we are disturbed by the conformity of attitudes, values, and behavior that bureaucracies often induce, then we may wish to set up conditions and policies that foster uniqueness, self-direction, and human dignity, locally or globally.

Works Cited Neustadt, Richard. (1991) Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership. Free Press. Jones, Charles O. (1994). The Presidency In A Separated System. Brookings Institution. Ellis, Richard J. and Michael Nelson. (2006). Debating the Presidency: Conflicting Perspectives on the American Executive. CQ Press.

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