Unilateral Inaction: Congressional Gridlock, Interbranch Conflict, and Public Evaluations of Executive Power

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Andrew Reeves,Jon C. Rogowski
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12353

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LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 47, 2, May 2022

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12353

ANDREW REEVES

Washington University in St. Louis

JON C. ROGOWSKI

University of Chicago

Unilateral Inaction: Congressional

Gridlock, Interbranch Conflict, and

Public Evaluations of Executive Power

Presidents routinely overpromise and underdeliver, especially amid parti-

san polarization, narrow congressional majorities, and persistent gridlock. As

Congress routinely stymies their legislative agendas, presidents consider alter-

native courses of action. We study public reactions to unilateral power in the

context of congressional inaction. While some research suggests that presidents

cannot afford to pass up opportunities to act, more recent scholarship indicates

that the public holds negative views of unilateral power and disapproves of its

use. Survey experiments conducted with a national sample of Americans provide

evidence of the costs of unilateral power. Across three policy areas and between-

and within- respondent analyses, the public responds negatively when presidents

exercise unilateral power rather than accept the status quo, even among individu-

als who share the president’s policy views. Our results suggest that while legisla-

tive gridlock may increase the appeal of unilateral power, its use may come at a

public cost.

New presidential administrations take office with robust leg-

islative agendas that seek to advance the president’s policy pri-

orities (Bond and Fleisher 1990; Chamberlain 1946; Cohen 2012;

Lee 2008; Sinclair 2003). Drawing upon both formal and infor-

mal bargaining tools (Beckmann 2010, 2016; Cameron 2000),

presidents attempt to shape the contents of legislative enactments

while meeting voters’ expectations that they “do something about

everything” (Neustadt 1990, 7). In the contemporary era, how-

ever, Congress has been characterized by growing polarization

(McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006) and governed by increas-

ingly narrow partisan majorities (Lee 2016). Similarly, increased

opposition of out- party legislators to the president’s agenda (Lee

2008) limits presidents’ ability to secure bipartisan supermajorities

© 2021 Washington University in St. Louis

428 Andrew Reeves and Jon C. Rogowski

often needed to advance new legislation (Krehbiel 1998). These

conditions have contributed to increased gridlock (see, e.g., Binder

2015) and present challenges for presidents attempting to secure

their policy objectives through the legislative process. As the pace

of legislation slows, administrative strategies, including the use of

unilateral power, may hold increased appeal as a means for presi-

dents to advance their goals (e.g., Barber, Bolton, and Thrower

2019; Howell 2003).

In this article, we study how the public evaluates presiden-

tial policymaking in contexts of legislative gridlock and opposi-

tion. Some existing scholarship argues that the public demands

presidential action despite congressional opposition or incapac-

ity. According to these arguments, presidential action is presiden-

tial leadership. Howell argues that, “opting not to act— indeed,

merely being perceived as not acting— comes at a great political

cost” (2013, 125). This argument suggests that the reason to act

unilaterally is obvious for any president who cares about the es-

teem of the public. Yet other research finds that the public holds

negative views of unilateral power (Reeves and Rogowski 2015,

2016) and, in at least some circumstances, disapproves of presi-

dents who enact policies via unilateral means rather than through

the legislative process (Christenson and Kriner 2017b; Lowande

and Gray 2017). These findings suggest that presidents have public

incentives to pursue legislation over unilateralism as a means of

demonstrating action.

In a context of congressional gridlock and opposition, it is

not clear whether the public prefers that presidents make use of

unilateral power when the alternative is no policy change. This is

precisely the context in which theories of unilateral action pre-

dict it can contribute most strongly to presidential power (Howell

2003). It is also the context in which recent presidents have most

clearly threatened Congress with the use of unilateral power. We

introduce public opinion to this scenario and seek to characterize

how public audiences structure incentives for presidential unilater-

alism. Existing studies do not directly address public reactions to

unilateral action when policy change would otherwise not occur

without it. Addressing this question is essential, however, for un-

derstanding presidents’ incentives for using unilateral power when

congressional gridlock makes legislative action unlikely, a con-

text increasingly familiar for recent presidents. Just as Congress

may accrue electoral benefits from passing “dead- on- arrival” bills

(Gelman 2017) and can force presidents to veto popular policies