John E Owens

"The 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington prompted a "global war on terror" that led to a significant shift in the balance of executive-legislative power in the United States towards the executive at the expense of the Congress. The contributors to this volume ask whether this pattern was repeated across a range of democracies that were also threatened by terrorist attacks after 9/11.

In this volume, seasoned scholars examine the extent to which terrorist threats and counter-terrorism policies led uniformly to the growth of executive or Government power at the expense of legislatures and parliaments in other political systems, including those of Australia, Britain, Canada, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, and Russia. The research reported questions whether the “crises” created by 9/11 and subsequent attacks and foiled attacks elsewhere, led inexorably to executive strengthening at the expense of legislatures and parliaments. The research reported finds that democratic forces served to mitigate changes to the balance of legislative and executive power to varying degrees in different political systems.

Series: Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics

ISBN: 978-0-415-48933-1

Publication Date: 16/06/2010

Pages: 240

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Bert A. Rockman, Purdue University - "The War on Terror and the Growth of Executive Power? A Comparative Analysis is an invaluable cross-national study of the balancing of institutional forces in responding to terrorism.  John Owens and Ricardo Pelizzo have brought together an outstanding array of scholars to inquire as to the institutional equilibrium as that has evolved - and the causes of it - in systems as diverse as the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia, Canada, Israel, Italy, and Indonesia. Owens and Pelizzo have assessed the institutional responses in the USA and Italy, respectively, and they have combined to write a notable introduction to this book. What is most remarkable is the range of responses that has occurred across these varied political systems as well as the frequently counter-intuitive nature of the responses. For those interested in the dynamics of comparative constitutionalism under duress and of inter-institutional relationships, The War on Terror and the Growth of Executive Power is as essential as it is enlightening."

Bert Rockman is co-editor of Presidential Leadership: The Vortex of Power; The George W. Bush Presidency: Appraisals and Prospects; Institutions and Democratic Statecraft; and Do Institutions Matter? Government Capabilities in the U.S. and Abroad.

Leonardo Morlino, Instituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Florence - "In a timely and original book, the authors merge together two traditionally separate literatures to assess in a number of important cases the impact of extraordinary critical events, such as terrorist attacks, on the domestic relationships between the executive and legislature. The reaction of democratic institutions is brilliantly singled out and shows, contra Carl Schmitt, that critical events do not always lead to an erosion of democratic quality."

Leonardo Morlino is Jean Monnet Professor of Political Science at the Instituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Florence; President of the International Political Science Association, and author of Assessing the Quality of Democracy and Rule of Law and Democracy.

Christoph Meyer, Kings College, London -  “A well-focused, highly informative and nuanced comparative study of shifting executive-legislative relations during the first years of the US-led 'war on terror'. John Owens and Riccardo Pelizzo are to be congratulated for bringing together competent contributors writing on eight cases, including not only the US and the UK, but also the less frequently covered Russia, Australia and Indonesia. They help to understand why in some cases executives were less successful in loosening parliamentary controls over their often-problematic conduct. The book offers plenty of material to advance theory, but also to mount a critique of some of the excesses of executive power in response to jihadist extremism.”

Christoph O. Meyer is editor of Europe’s Response to International Terrorism and author of The Quest for a European Strategic Culture

Davd M. Olson, UNC - “Taking advantage of the research opportunity presented by world-wide terrorist attacks, this volume examines the resulting balance of executive-legislative relations through both a multi-country and longitudinal research design.  While the executive gained power over the legislature in Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the results were different in Australia, Indonesia, Israel and Italy.  This readable set of essays on seven political systems differing greatly in constitutional structure, democratic stability and religious identities, highlights the utility of real time comparative research in a global age.”

David Olson is co-director of the Center for Legislative Studies, University of North Carolina and author of Democratic Legislative Institutions: A Comparative View


CONTENTS:

1. Introduction: The "War on Terror" and the Growth of Executive Power? A Comparative Analysis - JOHN E. OWENS, The University of Westminster AND RICCARDO PELIZZO, Griffith University

2. Congressional Acquiescence to Presidentialism in the US ‘War on Terror’: From Bush to Obama - JOHN E. OWENS, The University of Westminster

3. Parliamentary Scrutiny and Oversight of the British “War on Terror”: Surrendering Power to Parliament or Plus Ça Change? - MARK SHEPHARD, University of Strathclyde

4. Putin, Parliament, and Presidential Exploitation of the Terrorist Threat - THOMAS F. REMINGTON, Emory University

5. Bipartisanship and Bicameralism in Australia’s ‘War on Terror’: Forcing Limits on the Extension of Executive Power - PHIL LARKIN, University of Canberra and JOHN UHR, The Australian National University

6. Canada’s “War on Terror”, Parliamentary Assertiveness, and Minority Government - JONATHAN MALLOY, Carleton University

7. Israeli’s Prolonged War against Terror: From Executive Domination to Executive-Legislative Dialogue - CHEN FRIEDBERG and REUVEN Y. HAZAN, The Hebrew University - Jerusalem

8. Nihil Novi Sub Sole? Executive Power, the Italian Parlamento and the ‘War on Terror’ - RICCARDO PELIZZO, Griffith University

9. Reformasi and the Indonesian ‘War on Terror’:  State, Military and Legislative-Executive Relations in an Emerging Democracy - EDWARD V. SCHNEIER, The City University of New York

"

"Lexington Books, MA, 2008.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-2232-7 (hb);

ISBN-13: 978-0-7391-2233-4 (pb)

"This is an excellent resource for anyone interested in probing the political and policy consequences of the U.S. war on terrorism. Owens and Dumbrell are to be commended for bringing together a capable group of seasoned scholars to create a provocative and highly insightful collection of essays. One of the volume's clear strengths is its theoretical and substantive breadth. An impressive array of actors, policy tools, and conceptual approaches are covered within a relatively short amount of space."—Christopher M. Jones, Northern Illinois University


How has 9/11 and George W. Bush's self-declared "war" on terror changed American government and US foreign policy? This is the central question addressed in the nine original essays in this book. Following an introduction by the editors, in which they survey issues and debates raised by America's "War" on Terrorism and its consequences for US government and politics, foreign policy, and for American foreign relations, the contributions to this volume—from British and American scholars—explain the implications of the post-9/11 mobilization and reconfiguration of US foreign and internal security policies.

Issues addressed in the book include: the growth of presidential power, executive branch reconfiguration and the managerial presidency, the Bush doctrine of pre-emption, the changing role of the US in the international order, the impact of the "war" on terrorism on the US military, intelligence failure and the changed role of US intelligence, renewed tension in US-European relations, and Bush's alliance with Tony Blair's government in the United Kingdom. Taken together, the essays represent an original and timely assessment of the domestic and international repercussions of George W. Bush's responses to the terrorist attacks September 11, 2001.

List of Contributors
Richard S. Conley, Saki Ruth Dockrill, Tim Dunne, John W. Dumbrell, Richard Lock-Pullan, James M. McCormick, John E. Owens, Mark Phythian, Gareth Stansfield.

Contents

Introduction: John E. Owens and John W. Dumbrell – America’s “War on Terrorism”: New Dimensions in United States Government and National Security

1. John E. Owens – Presidential Aggrandizemnt and Congressional Acquiescence in the “War on Terrorism”: A New Constitutional Equilibrium?

2. Richard S. Conley – Reform, Reorganization, and the Renaissance of the Managerial Presidency?  The Impact of 9/11 on the Executive Establishment

3. Saki Ruth Dockrill – Dealing with Fear: Implementing the Bush Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Attack

4. Tim Dunne and Gareth Stansfield - Realist and Reflectivist Perspectives on International Relations and the US "War on Terror”

5. Richard Lock-Pullan  – US Military Strategy, Strategic Culture and the “War on Terror”

6. Mark Phythian – Locating Failure: U.S. Pre-War Intelligence on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction

7. James M. McCormick – The War on Terror and Contemporary US-European Relations

8. John W. Dumbrell – Working with Allies: US-UK Relations, the Iraq Invasion and the Future of the “Special Relationship”

Index

About the Contributors


About the Editors
John E. Owens is professor of United States government and politics at the University of Westminster and a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at the American University.

John W. Dumbrell is professor of government at Durham University. "

Manchester University Press/St. Martins Press, NY, 1996.

432 pp.

ISBN 07190 3883 9 (hb)
ISBN 07190 3884 7 (pb)

Explains the nature of recent changes in the relationship between Congress and the Presidency of the United States. Adopting a distinctly institutional focus, this text examines the consequences of these changes for the contemporary American political system.

In this study, the authors argue that over the last three decades the ways in which Congress and the presidency operate and interact have changed in several significant respects.

Adopting a distinctly institutional focus, the text explains the nature of these changes and examines their consequences for the contemporary American political system. Foley and Owens direct attention to both bodies as co-equal institutions in a separated system. They examine both the historical development of the Congress and the presidency as separate institutions within American national government, as well as the changing relations between them. Taking into account important developments since the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994 and the advent of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America", the authors consider how the organizational designs of these representative and governing institutions have responded over time to internal pressures and external factors. The book locates the two institutions within the policy-making process and studies the varied and complex implications of "the politics of separated powers".

The authors emphasize the dynamism of America's foremost political institutions within a democratic system. They examine recent developments in relation to the wider context of United States politics and reassert the importance of institutions in understanding this unique political system.


REVIEWS:

LOUIS FISHER, Library of Congress in Political Science Quarterly, Spring 1997 - 'While recognising the impact of personalities and individual actors, Foley and Owens carefully and systematically examine the institutional environment in which [Congress and the president] operate. Theory, history, institutional structures, charts, and statistics are skillfully blended to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each branch. Given the ambitious scope of the book, the writing is uniformly lucid, crisp, and insightful. Clearly this is a major work done by outsiders peering inside. They succeed admirably."

' a job extremely well done'.


CONTENTS

1 The dynamics of institutional change in Congress: the Constitution; the institutional development of Congress; four eras of institutional change.

2 Congress' electoral connection: the nature of Congressional elections; the formal context of Congressional representation; Congressional recruitment; incumbents and their constituents.

3 Congress as an organization - member enterprises and committees: a week in Congress; Congress and the problem of representation; House-Senate differences; members' personal enterprises; legislation and lawmaking; the committee system.

4 Congressional parties and legislative decision-making: party organizations; majority party leadership; Congressional decision-making.

5 The institutionalization of the Presidency: constitutional and historical roots; Presidents, precedents and institutionalization; executive government as a source of presidential power; executive government as a limitation of presidential power; benefits and problems of control devices; de-institutionalization.

6 The public Presidency: federal conditions and party divisions; the Presidency and the promise of national leadership; primary elections as solutions and problems; dollar democracy; political television and media politics; party de-alignment and candidate-based electioneering; the public presidency and the "permanent election".

7 Presidential decision-making: the collective deficiencies of the American Cabinet; contraction as a response to the problem of decision making; the individual as the normative and empirical foundations of Presidential decision-making; the corrective dimension of the political environment.

8 Legislating together: the Constitution and the growth of the Presidency-centred tradition; the legislative Presidency; institutional competition within a separated system; Presidential leadership skills; Presidential popularity; the President and Congressional partisanship; the President and legislators' ideologies; the strategic environment for legislating; legislating together.

9 Interpreting the separation of powers: the conceptual, structural and cultural components of separated powers; the contemporary significance of the separation of powers; the Supreme Court and Presidential restraint; the Supreme Court and Congressional constraint; the Supreme Court and executive licence; the limits of judicial management; the politics of separated powers.

10 Policy controversies: foreign policy as an executive prerogative; the challenge; new environments and disrupted orthodoxies; administration as an executive function; administration as a Congressional interest; Congressional controls over the administrative process; Congress as co-manager of the executive.

11 The Congress, the Presidency and the democratic system."

Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD and Oxford, 2003.

248 pp.

ISBN 07425 2852-9 (hb)

ISBN 07425 2853-7 (pb).

What is political leadership and does it operate differently in different political contexts? In addition to context, personal political skill plays a large role in the area of leadership, often yielding significant results. Whether a leader is active or passive, creating dynamic relations of talent and institutional powers or choosing to leave situations as they are, skill is frequently the key factor in policy achievement.

In this book, editors Hargrove and Owens gather seven very different studies of skill in context. From the role of the European Commission president to the well established function of the president of the United States, each essay analyzes and interprets the effects of institutional powers and the environments in which leaders operate on their effectiveness and degree of personal talent each brings to the table.

The seven essays in this work explore important questions that are at the heart of the understanding of political leadership. What are the relationships among personal political skill, the strength or weakness of institutional roles available to leaders, and the changing historical and political contexts within which leades act? Politicians with agendas for change seek to create dynamic relations of talent, institutional powers and the politics of strategic leadership in the environments that they face. Passive leaders may leave things as they are or inadvertently stimulate new political opposition. Institutional powers may strengthn the hand of less skillful politicians if the environment is favorable. And political climates will vary greatly in the degrees to which they are favorable to potentially skillful leadership. Effective leadership may be successful by a hair's breadth, or it may be over determined by context.


CONTENTS

Leadership in Context - Erwin C. Hargrove, John E. Owens

Presidential Leadership: Skill in Context - Erwin C. Hargrove

Late Twentieth Century Congressional Leaders as Shapers of and Hostages to Political Context: Gingrich, Hastert, and Lott
- John E. Owens

Political Skills and Context in Prime Ministerial Leadership in Britian - Kevin Theakston

The Prime Minister in Canada and the Rise of Personalized Leadership - Colin Campbell

Comparing Jacques Delors and Jacques Santer as Presidents of the European Commission: Skill in Supranational Context - Christopher J. Lord

The Leadership Styles of the German Chancellors from Schmidt to Schröder - Christine Margerum Harlen

The Essence of Presidential Leadership in France: Pompidou, Giscard, Mitterand, and Chirac as Coalition Builders - David Scott Bell
"

"Basingstoke and New York: Macmillan/St. Martins Press, 1998.

193 pp.

ISBN 0-312-21294-1 (hb)

In 1994, the Republican Party won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1954 and the Senate for the first time since 1986, bringing to an end the longest uninterrupted period of single party rule in the entire history of the United States Congress. In this text, scholars from Britain and the United States document these developments and evaluate their significance. They aim to answer the following questions: what political messages did the 1994 election results carry?; how significant were the institutional changes introduced?; how distinctive was Newt Gingrich's style and strategy?; how conservative was the legislation enacted by the 104th Congress?; how in the course of a single Congress was President Bill Clinton able to evolve from political irrelevant to major policy player?; how were despondent congressional Democrats able to recover to play an important role in shaping legislative outcomes?; are there many similarities with the Republican Congress which faced President Harry Truman in the 1940s?; and what is the significance of the 104th Congress for the future development of this complex institution and the governing of America.


REVIEWS:

CHARLES O. JONES, University of Wisconsin-Madison - "The 1994 elections brought new politics to Washington and it is not too soon to begin analysing the effects. The Republican Takeover of Congress tackles that task admirably, showing how it is that split party government works in a separated system. Fine scholars treat important subjects in a well-conceived collection. This comprehensive review and appraisal of the election and the political, policy, ideological, leadership, institutional, and party consequences will find its way onto the shelves of scholars and into the book bags of students."

Charles O. Jones is the Hawkins Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

RICHARD F. FENNO, University of Rochester - "For political scientists, the 104th Congress presented a golden opportunity to test old theories, describe new arrangements and chart future prospects. This is the first book to take full advantage of the intellectual challenge. It is, at once, a wide-ranging treatment of congressional policymaking and an enlightening window on the new turn in American politics."

Richard F. Fenno is Distinguished University Professor Political Science at the University of Rochester.

THOMAS E. MANN, The Brookings Institution - "The startling 1994 mid-term elections and the ensuing 104th Congress constitute one of the most fascinating episodes in American politician history. Dean McSweeney and John Owens have directed a talented team of scholars documenting the dramatic developments and evaluating their significance for the future of politics and policy-making in America. The Republican Takeover of Congress is an invaluable guide to changes in Congress as an institution, in the direction of public policy, and in the strategies and political fortunes of the political parties and their leaders."

Thomas E. Mann is director of the governmental studies program at The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.

LEROY N. RIESELBACH, Indiana University - "The Gingrich era is over! The architect and hero of the ‘Republican revolution’ has strutted and fretted his hour upon the House stage and will be heard there no more. Scholarly attention will now focus on setting out the causes, accomplishments, and consequences for Congress and America, of the tumultuous years of the Gingrich stewardship. There is no better place to begin such an assessment than Dean McSweeney and John Owens’ valuable collection, The Republican Takeover of Congress. The seven substantive chapters (the editors offer brief introductory and concluding essays as well) provide a detailed catalogue of the events of the Gingrich interregnum as well as a wealth of provocative analyses of the period. From them emerges a graphic picture of the 104th Congress."

Leroy N. Rieselbach is professor political science at Indiana University.


CONTENTS

List of figures and tables

Preface and acknowledgements

1 The Republican Takeover in Context.
John E. Owens

2. The Mid-Term Election of 1994: Upheaval in Search of a Framework - Byron E. Shafer

3. The Republican Takeover: Institutional Change and Its Legislative Consequences - John E. Owens

4. Leading the Revolution: Innovation and Continuity in Congressional Party Leadership - Barbara Sinclair

5. The Republicans’ Policy Agenda and the Conservative Movement - Nigel Ashford

6. Split-Party Control: Clinton on the Defensive? - Michael Foley

7. Congressional Democrats and the Republican Takeover: Strategy and Influence - Dean McSweeney

8. Republican Rule in the 80th Congress - Anthony Badger

9. Conclusion: Perspectives on the Republican Takeover - Dean McSweeney

Index

List of figures and tables
"

Politicians of all parties still talk confidently of "a return to full employment" but is this any longer a realistic - or desirable - prospect? John Keane and John Owens argue that it is not ... Keane and Owens' central argument is that the post-war policy of full male employment, as well as political, economic and social preconditions, are not repeatable. Starting with Keynes and Beveridge, they explain how and why full employment welfare states developed in Britain and the US, and how they have in turn been replaced by the "strong state, free market" programmes of Thatcher and Reagan.

Shockingly, in the country that more than any other celebrates its democratic status, democratic subversion has become accepted in the United States at the expense of democratic compliance and become a contentious issue in the 2024 elections. What Przeworksi (1991) calls the basic calculus of democracy is no longer accepted by one of the country’s major parties

That is, under Donald Trump’s leadership, the party formally known as the Republican Party – now more accurately called the Trump Party – no longer adheres to the canonical requirement that today’s electoral losers accept their defeat and comply with the peaceful transfer of power in the expectation that at some point in the future they will win and expect their opponents to face the consequences of losing and relinquish governmental power.

Having moved to the right over recent decades, under Trump's charismatic, strongman-type leadership, the party has extended Newt Gingrich’s unconstrained approach to politics in the 1990s, playing on a shrinking, overwhelmingly white, minority coalition’s resentment of cultural, economic and demographic change to exploit fragilities in the democratic order, leverage the Constitution’s structural-partisan biases and recent patterns of electoral sorting, and push extreme conservative proposals that most voters do not support.

1. Introduction: The "War on Terror" and the Growth of Executive Power? A Comparative Analysis John E. Owens and Riccardo Pelizzo 2. Congressional Acquiescence to Presidentialism in the US 'War on Terror': From Bush to Obama John E. Owens 3. Parliamentary Scrutiny and Oversight of the British "War on Terror": Surrendering Power to Parliament or Plus Ca Change? Mark Shephard 4. Putin, Parliament, and Presidential Exploitation of the Terrorist Threat Thomas F. Remington 5. Bipartisanship and Bicameralism in Australia's 'War on Terror': Forcing Limits on the Extension of Executive Power Phil Larkin and John Uhr 6. Canada's "War on Terror", Parliamentary Assertiveness, and Minority Government Jonathan Malloy 7. Israeli's Prolonged War against Terror: From Executive Domination to Executive-Legislative Dialogue Chen Friedberg and Reuven Y. Hazan 8. Nihil Novi Sub Sole? Executive Power, the Italian Parlamento and the 'War on Terror' Riccardo Pelizzo 9. Reformasi and the Indonesian 'War on Terror': State, Military and Legislative-Executive Relations in an Emerging Democracy Edward V. Schneier

Congressional dominance theory holds that not only can the US Congress control the executive, it does. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 and the Bush administration's ensuing global 'war on terror' suggest a different result. ...

ABSTRACT To what extent are democratic institutions resilient when nation states mobilise for war? Normative and empirical political theorists have long argued that wars strengthen the executive and threaten constitutional politics. In modern democracies, national assemblies are supposed to hold the executive to account by demanding explanations for events and policies; and by scrutinising, reviewing and, if necessary, revising legislative proposals intended to be binding on the host society or policies that have been implemented already. This article examines the extent to which the British and Australian parliaments and the United States Congress held their wartime executives to account during World War II. The research finds that under conditions approaching those of total war, these democratic institutions not only continued to exist, but also proved to be resilient in representing public concerns and holding their executives to account, however imperfectly and notwithstanding delegating huge powers. In consequence, executives—more so British and Australian ministers than President Roosevelt—were required to be placatory as institutional and political tensions within national assemblies and between assemblies and executives continued, and assemblies often asserted themselves. In short, even under the most onerous wartime conditions, democratic politics mattered and democratic institutions were resilient.

On 6 January 2021, an angry crowd stormed the United States Capitol. The insurrection was prompted by Donald Trump’s refusal to accept his November election loss. The President claimed victory had been stolen through fraud, sought to persuade state election officials to falsify results, contemplated martial law, and partly financed and organised the mob that descended on Washington. Behind all this, Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ has torn a fissure through the Republican Party. While the immediate cause of the fissure was Trump’s post-election behaviour, it’s the result of a decades-long process by which the Grand Old Party (GOP) unshackled itself from its core conservative principles, as it harnessed itself to opposition and identity politics, exploited white low-income voters’ fears of cultural change and economic displacement, and embraced anti-democratic action. The upshot is that the political organisation formally known as the Republican Party became the Trump Party, a party that has more in common with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally than Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.