Evaluating Policy in the Bush II Presidency

Abstract

Presidents are not necessarily remembered just for the policies they produce. They are remembered, for better or worse, for their personalities, their style of communication, their ability (or inability) to persuade, and for their managerial styles. In the case of President Bush, he will be remembered to a very significant extent for his management style and for the policies that accompanied this style of governing. As we have seen, President Bush continually pushed the boundaries of executive control outward, employing a multitude of means to consolidate further executive power, often at the expense of congressional, judicial, or state power. As we stated in chapter one, we are obviously not the first to speak at length about the Bush administration’s ambitious use of executive power. Many scholars and commentators have produced an abundance of research documenting this pattern in the Bush presidency. However, we have sought to go further and rigorously evaluate the effects of George W. Bush’s bureaucratic management on public policy, particularly in the arena of domestic policy.