#terry moe

[weil-weil-lautre]

[T]here is a key advantage that is often overlooked. Because [American] presidents are executives, and because of the discretion, opportunities, and resources available to them, they are ideally suited to be first movers and to reap the agenda powers that go along with it. If they want to shift the status quo by taking unilateral action on their own authority, whether or not that authority is clearly established in law, they can simply do it - quickly, forcefully, and (if they like) with no advance notice. The other branches are then presented with a fait accompli, and it is up to them to respond. If they are unable to respond effectively, or decide not to, presidents win by default. And even if they do respond, which could take years, presidents may still get much of what they want anyway. The bottom line, then, is that the Constitution's incomplete contract sets up a governing structure that virtually invited presidential imperialism. Presidents, especially in modern times, are motivated to seek power. And because the Constitution does not say precisely what the proper boundaries of their power are, and because their hold on the executive functions of government gives them pivotal advantages in the political struggle, they have strong incentives to push for expanded authority by moving into grey areas of the law, asserting their rights, and exercising them, - whether or not other actors, particularly in Congress, happen to agree.

Terry Moe and William Howell, “Unilateral action and presidential power: a theory” (1999)

[dartthrowingchimp]

Score One for Terry Moe

This from an article in today's New York Times about an abundance of costly but unfinished infrastructural projects in Brazil:

Brazil’s transportation minister, César Borges, expressed exasperation with the delays in finishing the railroad, which is needed to transport soybean harvests to port. He listed the bureaucracies that delay projects like the Transnordestina: the Federal Court of Accounts; the Office of the Comptroller General; an environmental protection agency; an institute protecting archaeological patrimony; agencies protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and descendants of escaped slaves; and the Public Ministry, a body of independent prosecutors.

Still, Mr. Borges insisted, “Projects get delayed in countries around the world, not just Brazil.”

Mr. da Silva, who oversaw the start of work on the Transnordestina [railroad] eight years ago, was frank about the role of his Workers Party, once the opposition in Brazil’s National Congress, in creating such delays. “We created a machinery, an oversight machinery, that is the biggest oversight machinery in the world,” he said, explaining how his party helped create a labyrinthine system of audits and environmental controls before he and Ms. Rousseff were elected.

“When you’re in the opposition, you want to create difficulties for those that are in the administration,” Mr. da Silva said. “But we forget that maybe one day we’ll take office.”

See especially 1989's "The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure" (wikisum here).