The Institutional Effects of Executive Scandals

Brandon Rottinghaus author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:30th Apr '15

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Institutional Effects of Executive Scandals cover

This book investigates the role of executive scandals in the contemporary American political landscape.

This book investigates the nature of executive scandals in American politics and their effects on governance, political polarization, and democratic accountability. The author analyzes over 400 gubernatorial and presidential scandals over the past forty years to create a common intellectual framework for understanding their role in government.Watergate, Iran-Contra, Lewinsky, Enron, Bridgegate: according to the popular media, executive scandals are ubiquitous. Although individual scandals persist in the public memory and as the subject of academic study, how do we understand the impacts of executive indiscretion or malfeasance as a whole? What effect, if any, do scandals have on political polarization, governance, and, most importantly, democratic accountability? Recognizing the important and enduring role of scandals in American government, this book proposes a common intellectual framework for understanding their nature and political effects. Brandon Rottinghaus takes a systematic look the dynamics of the duration of scandals, the way they affect presidents and governors' capacity to govern, and the strategic choices executives make in confronting scandal at both the state and national levels. His findings reveal much about not only scandal, but the operation of American politics.

'Presidential scholars will welcome and benefit from this finely crafted and useful book. The author is balanced and fair-minded, and allows the data to do the talking.' Michael A. Genovese, Congress and the Presidency

ISBN: 9781107102972

Dimensions: 236mm x 160mm x 20mm

Weight: 480g

230 pages