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The Us President Is Effectively Unrestrained Essay

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The Us President Is Effectively Unrestrained Essay
“The US President is effectively unrestrained in the exercise of political power within the US system of government”. How far do you agree with this statement? (30 marks)

The power of the President has evolved since the constitution was ratified in 1788. It can be said that the President enjoys a more exercised form of power as American politics has developed and adapted but they are not “effectively unrestrained” due to the many checks are balances that a President must regard when asserting their power.
The constitution sets out formal powers of the President in article II. These include chief administrator, commander-in-chief, chief lawmaker and head of state. However, there has been a growth of informal powers that include chief legislator, party leader, world leader and chief diplomat. It is with these informal powers that President is able to have more freedom with exercising and asserting their power. Following this is Neustadt’s theory of “persuader in chief”. This can be expressed through the State of Union address. On the 25th January 2011, Barack Obama gave his state of the union address focusing on his views on the issues in …show more content…
However, American politics has evolved and there are circumstances to which a President is allowed to exercise an increased amount of power because part of his/her “head of state role” includes people turning to them for answers and decisions and therefore emergency powers need to be at hand in order for them to be able to do this. However, they are not effectively unrestrained because there are always collective bodies there monitoring the President’s decisions. Even if the policies are dealing with foreign affairs, the media are always around documenting and reporting back to the republic and their opinions can be seen as restraining to a President much like Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam
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