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The Wartime President: Executive Influence and the Nationalizing Politics of Threat. By William G. Howell, Saul P. Jackman, and Jon C. Rogowski. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. 344 pp.
"War made the state," Charles Tilly famously declaimed; "and the state made war." In their rich new work, William Howell, Saul Jackman, and Jon Rogowski shift this proposition slightly on its axis. If war makes the presidency, they wonder, can the president make policy?
A pantheon of notables-Hamilton, Madison, Tocqueville, Bryce, Corwin, Schlesinger-have long argued that wars enhance presidential power. The Wartime Presi- dent does not disagree-but it does argue that this effect has been assumed, rather than analyzed, and its contingencies rarely explored. Under what conditions does war allow the president to get more of what he wants, to what extent, and-crucially-why? Are all wars, and all presidents, created equal? Is there variance even within a given war? Across different policy areas?
As "we cannot view presidential influence directly; like quarks, we can only see its traces" (p. 18), it is actually congressional behavior that is measured here, using a "policy priority model" that seeks to identify the general circumstances under which Congress should enact the president's preferences. The key building blocks are that (1) policies have both national and local outcomes and (2) presidents and members of Congress tend to place different weights on those. Most broadly,...