The Institutional Effects of Executive Scandals

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.

Introduction; 1. Studying scandals: state and national executive scandals; 2. Strategic decisions: stonewall or come clean?; 3. The institutional and political dynamics to political survival; 4. The effect of scandal on executive action and policy selection; 5. The effect of scandals on executive-legislative relations; 6. Scandals and charges of corruption; 7. The impacts and implications of executive scandals on the American political system.

Brandon Rottinghaus is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Senator Don Henderson Scholar at the University of Houston. Professor Rottinghaus is the co-founder of the Presidential Proclamations Project, an online resource documenting presidential use of unilateral powers through executive proclamation. His most recent book is The Provisional Pulpit: Modern Presidential Leadership of Public Opinion (2010).