The Imperial President? President Obama's use of Executive Power Compared to Other Modern Presidents
Date
2015-05
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
President Obama’s use of unilateral executive power during his presidency has
evoked fears that he is becoming an overreaching or imperial president. But presidents
for decades have been avid users of executive power, so this thesis discusses whether
President Obama’s use of executive power is greater than that of any other modern
president across certain categories. For the purposes of my research I broke executive
power into three sections; executive orders, executive privilege, and military action. I
chose these categories because of their current newsworthiness, their prominence in
presidential history, and because they represent actions initiated directly by the
president. I hypothesized that President Obama does not use these powers to an extent
much greater than previous presidents, but also no less. I found that overall President
Obama is not much different from previous presidents in his use of executive power.
However, while his actions are similar to previous presidents, he has carved out areas
for future presidents to further expand executive power.
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Research Subject Categories::SOCIAL SCIENCES::Social sciences::Political science