With gridlock, presidents increasingly rely on unilateral actions - means not requiring legislative statutes - which many view as tantamount to power. Using a variety of approaches, Chiou and Rothenberg show that this need not be the case as, under many conditions, the chief executive's employment of such tools is constrained. Rather, presidents contemplating issuing executive orders are often constrained by worries about challenging the legislature and the courts. Most notably, the ability of Congress to employ extra-statutory means, involving efforts by legislators and their parties that don't require passing a law, limit how presidents utilize their discretion. Additionally, political parties can influence presidential choices and actions both by restricting the ideological direction in which presidents can push policy via discretionary authority and by agenda-setting and disciplining members in the legislative process. Nor are all presidential actions equal, as the policy area involved and the importance of an action condition presidential power.

Since 1990, polarization hindered changing environmental policy statutorily. Yet, in mid-2016 the Lautenberg Act regulating toxics - chemicals employed in commerce - was passed, winning business and environmental support. What might explain this? Has the Trump administration undercut the law's effects? Does the Act's passage portend more progressive actions? We show that the Act was a function of the status quo changing due to regulatory efforts abroad and in the United States, and from outside pressures on business. These influences impacted implementation, with the Trump administration not targeting toxics regulation analogous to other programs. Further, the processes we observe for toxics may not be unique.

Lawrence Rothenberg examines some of the most elusive aspects of interest group operations through an in-depth study of one of the largest interest groups in Washington, Common Cause. In developing what might be called a membership theory, he asks such questions as: Why do members join a group? Who stays and who leaves and why? What is the nature of the relationships among the activists, the group leaders and the rank-and-file members? How do these relationships shape the lobbying policies of the group? How is the lobbying impact of a group related to the nature of its membership? In addition, Rothenberg analyzes the impact the lobbying efforts of Common Cause have had through case studies of the Congressional vote on the MX missile system and of the agenda setting behind the campaign finance reform bill.

Lawrence Rothenberg examines some of the most elusive aspects of interest group operations through an in-depth study of one of the largest interest groups in Washington, Common Cause. In developing what might be called a membership theory, he asks such questions as: Why do members join a group? Who stays and who leaves and why? What is the nature of the relationships among the activists, the group leaders and the rank-and-file members? How do these relationships shape the lobbying policies of the group? How is the lobbying impact of a group related to the nature of its membership? In addition, Rothenberg analyzes the impact the lobbying efforts of Common Cause have had through case studies of the Congressional vote on the MX missile system and of the agenda setting behind the campaign finance reform bill.

With gridlock, presidents increasingly rely on unilateral actions - means not requiring legislative statutes - which many view as tantamount to power. Using a variety of approaches, Chiou and Rothenberg show that this need not be the case as, under many conditions, the chief executive's employment of such tools is constrained. Rather, presidents contemplating issuing executive orders are often constrained by worries about challenging the legislature and the courts. Most notably, the ability of Congress to employ extra-statutory means, involving efforts by legislators and their parties that don't require passing a law, limit how presidents utilize their discretion. Additionally, political parties can influence presidential choices and actions both by restricting the ideological direction in which presidents can push policy via discretionary authority and by agenda-setting and disciplining members in the legislative process. Nor are all presidential actions equal, as the policy area involved and the importance of an action condition presidential power.

Within a federal system, government agencies and regulatory policies can be fractured -- even at odds with each other. National actors share power with their counterparts in states and localities, as do presidents with Congressional leaders, and bureaucrats with judges. Understanding the broad economic and political contexts of environmental policymaking illuminates the motivations behind policy choices of various interested parties, from the National Park Service and the EPA to environmental activists and members of Congress. Rothenberg utilizes basic economic ideas to provide, not only a fresh look at how the U.S. deals with environmental ills, but a way of thinking about policy making in general.

This book looks beyond politics to show how the ability of the U.S. government to implement policies is strongly affected by various economic constraints. These include the credibility of the policies, the ability of government to commit to them, the extent to which firms and consumers rationally anticipate their effects, whether the success of a policy further encourages firms and individuals to behave in intended ways, and whether the behavior of such actors can be sustained without continued government intervention.

The authors apply these concepts to four areas of policy: macroeconomic policies to promote employment and economic growth, redistributive policies to benefit the poor and the elderly, production policies to provide goods and services, and regulatory policies to guide the behavior of firms and individuals. In doing so they provide plausible explanations of many puzzling phenomena--for example, why government has been successful in reducing cigarette smoking, but has failed to get people to install and maintain emission-control devices in their cars. This book recasts debates about public policy, avoiding conventional "pro-government" or "anti-government" positions; rather, it helps to predict when public policy will succeed.