The Unsustainable Presidency Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Beyond

The Unsustainable Presidency develops a structural theory of the office by challenging and redefining the twin imperatives upon which the modern chief executive was constructed: unlimited economic growth and national security through the expansion of empire. Neither goal is sustainable in a world of global climate change and the waning of US military supremacy. Thus the modern presidency is an unsustainable office that as currently constituted is incapable of offering solutions to the problems confronting America and the world. The book's distinctive contributions center on building a critique of all leading theories of the presidency; forging an analysis of economic growth and national security policies as pursued in the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama; and pointing a way out of the catastrophic bind that confronts the Twenty-First Century president.

William F. Grover is Professor of Political Science at Saint Michael's College in Vermont. He is the author of The President as Prisoner: A Structural Critique of the Carter and Reagan Years and co-editor of Voices of Dissent: Critical Readings in American Politics. He is a former American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow.

Joseph G. Peschek is Professor of Political Science at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of Policy-Planning Organizations: Elite Agendas and America's Rightward Turn and co-editor of Voices of Dissent: Critical Readings in American Politics. He is a former Editor of the journal New Political Science.

Contents

Preface
1. Theories of the American Presidency
2. Beyond Institutions-as-Structure: A Deeper Structural Perspective
3. Bill Clinton and the Neoliberal Presidency
4. The Conservative Mirage: George W. Bush and Empire Waning
5. Change You can Believe in? The Barack Obama Presidency
6. Toward a Deep Presidency: Coming to Terms with our Constitutional Catastrophe-in-Chief
Endnotes
Index