Buy This

Political Science

Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency

A penetrating account of how, over many decades, conservative backlash to the administrative state led to the rise of a strongman presidency that threatens American democracy

ebook (PDF via app)

Price:
$35.00/拢30.00
ISBN:
Published:
Aug 19, 2025
Copyright:
2025
Illus:
3 b/w illus.
  • Audio and ebooks (EPUB and PDF) purchased from this site must be accessed on the 91桃色 app. After purchasing, you will an receive email with instructions to access your purchase.
    About audio and ebooks
  • Request Exam Copy

In Trajectory of Power, leading political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe provide a sweeping account of the historical rise of presidential power, arguing that it has now grown to the point where, in the wrong hands, it threatens to subvert American democracy and replace it with a de facto system of strongman rule, whether led by Donald Trump or someone else.

The book shows that, for much of the twentieth century, Republican and Democratic presidents pursued power in very similar ways and almost always within democratic bounds. But Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan, in a transformation that has grown increasingly extreme over time, have gone beyond the 鈥渘ormal鈥� incentives that have traditionally shaped presidential behavior鈥攁nd still shape the behavior of Democratic presidents鈥攖o pursue a presidency of such expansive unilateral power, and with such disregard for basic democratic requirements, that it puts democracy at serious risk.

Trajectory of Power traces this divergence in approach to the backlash of conservatives against the administrative state, and to their epiphany that a war on big government could only be waged through a presidency of extraordinary power. With this vision in mind, Reagan鈥檚 Justice Department pioneered the Unitary Executive Theory, which justified vast expansions of unilateral presidential power and was further radicalized over the decades as the Republican Party became more ideologically extreme, more populist, more anti-system, and ultimately more supportive of a strongman presidency.

Timely, urgent, and original, Trajectory of Power reveals how the presidency has been profoundly transformed during the modern era鈥攁nd why it now puts our democracy in imminent danger.