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The article discusses a presumption of regularity in America's judicial review of the executive branch, and it mentions U.S. Supreme Court (Supreme Court) cases and a travel ban involving majority-Muslim nations which was issued by American President Donald Trump's Administration. According to the article, the Supreme Court has used the phrase presumption of regularity in 59 legal cases between 1900 and 2018. Presumptions involving prosecutors and administrative agencies are assessed.

This article analyzes the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 and the evolving role of the federal government in educational policy. We rely on John Kingdon’s policy window framework to evaluate how key political constituencies on both the political right and left pressured Congress to limit both the executive branch and federal roles in educational policy. We find that policies during the Obama Administration shifted political attitudes on key issues and within key constituencies that had previously supported a stronger federal role. We conclude with a discussion of how this shift in federal education policy can yield insights applicable to other policy areas and also how this informs the current direction of federal^state relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the institutional design of a state's bureaucracy affect foreign policy? We argue that institutions can moderate bureaucrats' incentives to act in accordance with an Executive's diplomatic preferences. Where the Executive can influence budgets or career paths, bureaucrats face incentives to adopt her diplomatic goals as their own. Where agencies are shielded from Executive influence, bureaucrats are free to act independently in a bid to enhance their autonomy and their reputation for competence. To test these expectations, we develop a new measure of bureaucratic independence for the 15 aid-giving agencies in the US government. We analyze how independence affects foreign aid allocation patterns over the 1999-2010 period. We find that in 'dependent' agencies, foreign aid flows track the diplomatic objectives of the president. In 'independent' agencies, aid flows appear less responsive to presidential priorities and more responsive to indicators of need in the recipient country. Our results highlight limits on the diplomatic use of foreign aid and emphasize the importance of domestic institutional design. Our findings yield insight into a broad range of policy domains-including international finance, immigration, and the application of economic sanctions-where multiple government agencies are in charge of implementing foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the legal and political arguments of those who support an expansive interpretation of US executive power in the face of threats to the state, taking a comparative historical perspective. It discusses the rationale for this approach by locating its historical origins in international and American jurisprudence, thereby placing them in a modern context. Attention is paid to the points made by various legal representatives of the Bush administration such as John Choon Yoo and Jay S. Bybee. Their views on an expansive response to state emergencies are based on a reading of executive power that informs the Bush administration's approach to law between 2001 and 2008. But this paper goes further in arguing that a common political-juridical ground exists between various critics of the Bush administration, and those who formulated the policies of torture and rendition. This common ground on the subject of executive power in response to emergency lies primarily in the examination of the state of exception examined by Giorgio Agamben. This approach has various implications as to the general exercise of power by the executive in a democratic system. Legem non habet necessitas. Necessity knows no law. Augustine, Soliloquium, 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article establishes that transitions of power from one presidential administration to the next can act as a source of uncertainty regarding whom citizens view as responsible for national conditions. I argue that citizens confront this ambiguity in a partisan manner when making responsibility attributions of credit and blame. Using the economy and the Iraq War as examples, ordinary partisans frequently ascribe responsibility using motivated reasoning by crediting the president of their own political party for perceived successes and blaming the president of the opposite party for perceived failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a hasty response to the 9/11 attacks, Congress authorized the 'war' against al-Qaeda in a statute known as the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). It was meant to be a temporary grant of powers to allow the president to fight the perpetrators of the attack. This article analyzes how two very different presidents have used the 2001 AUMF to justify controversial policies in ways unforeseen by its congressional makers, resulting in an accruement of power to the executive branch that could become long term, if not permanent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A summary is presented of the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 which reportedly deals with American war powers and a U.S. President's authority to transfer military detainees from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in Cuba to other foreign countries.

The article discusses executive power in the U.S. in relation to former American President Abraham Lincoln and motion picture director Steven Spielberg's film "Lincoln" which deals with then-U.S. President Lincoln's political maneuverings which were designed to save the union and abolish slavery. Actor Daniel Day-Lewis' portrayal of American President Lincoln is mentioned, along with then-U.S. President George W. Bush's role in the liberation of the Iraqi people from a reported tyranny.