The US Presidency
Power and Constraint
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12463501 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Corey Brettschneider (1Department of Political Science, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA; email: [email protected]), Aidan Calvelli, Aidan G Calvelli (0009-0001-4565-7810, 2Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; email: [email protected]) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 205-222 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Annual Review of Political Science (BOOK_SERIES) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1094-2939 • E-ISSN: 1545-1577 |
| Publisher | Annual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1146/annurev-polisci-051120-113134 |
| OpenAlex | W4399571767 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 15 |
How much should we fear that a president will break the law to pursue power—then use their office to avoid legal accountability? Political scientists studying the presidency have often overlooked the risk of what we here call a criminal president. Donald Trump's presidency spotlighted that risk and has begun to shift the field's focus toward not just presidential power but presidential constraints. We believe this shift should continue. In this review, we aim to set an agenda that makes the danger of a criminal president central to understanding the presidency more broadly. Situating the criminal presidency within wider questions about legal and constitutional constraints on presidential power, we emphasize the unique risks to democracy that a president unbound by law can pose. We call for a greater focus on the legal rules governing the executive branch—especially unitary executive ideas—and the policies needed to hold criminal presidents accountable
Accountability · Criminal law · Democracy · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Presidency · Presidential system · Separation of powers · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Law, Rights, and Freedoms · Legal and Constitutional Studies
Presidential Administration
The Law
The Administrative Presidency, Unilateral Power, and the Unitary Executive Theory
Toward Progressive Narratives of American Identity
Presidential survival in South America
The Perils of Presidentialism
Defining Bureaucratic Autonomy
Studying the Presidency
Presidential Unilateral Power
The Constraining of the President
Where Is Presidential Power? Measuring Presidential Discretion Using Experts
Has Barack Obama Embraced the Unitary Executive
United States
The New Unitary Executive and Democratic Theory
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |