The Contemporary Presidency Executive Orders and Presidential Unilateralism

How should we assess unilateral tactics and their contribution to presidential power in a less- than-unitary executive branch? To explore this question this article examines the provenance of nearly 300 executive orders from 1947 through 1987. Archival data show that executive orders are frequently a less- than-perfect representation of presidential preferences, despite the assumptions of recent work on unilateral power. That is, the issuance of executive orders often involves persuasion rather than simply command: it incorporates wide consultation across the executive branch and, frequently, White House ratification of what agencies wanted to do in the first place.