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Presidential Use of Executive Orders, 1953-1994

University of South Carolina

David B. Cohen

University of South Carolina

The frequency with which presidents issue executive orders is an important area of inquiry for students of executive politics, because this instrument can shape policy in a quick, direct manner that is outside the purview of the legislative arena. We construct a probabilistic-based empirical model that is used to explain variation in the number of presidential executive orders issued during the 1953-1994 annual period. Using event count regression techniques, these results indicate that the use of executive orders by presidents is significantly related to the legislative success they enjoy, the partisan composition of Congress, macroeconomic conditions, and the rate of growth in federal executive branch employment. The main implication of the study is that a president's willingness to issue executive orders is significantly related to a combination of legislative, public prestige, and managerial/institutional considerations. Thus, presidential use of executive orders is conditioned on different types of causal factors, and not solely attributable to the "institutionalized presidency" or legislative relations with Congress, as suggested in previous research on the topic.

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