Presidential legacies: l'eredità storica dello spazio di potere amministrativo da Reagan a Trump

In the last fifteen years both academic studies and news story have agreed upon the emergence of a sort of presidential Monarchy. Thirty years after the decline of Schlesinger’s Imperial Presidency, a concept used to describe the expansion of presidential powers in the wake of the Cold War, it seems that the US Presidency is experiencing the resurgence of an effective unilateral executive power, both in domestic as well as in foreign policies. It should be noted that this presidential discretionary power is first and foremost administrative in nature and is made not only of executive orders, but also of other ‘tools’, such as signing statements, memorandum, presidential guidelines, regulatory statutes and, last but not least, the power of appointment. This essay aims at clarifying the nature and extent of the presidential administrative power which, from Reagan to Obama, has increased at a fast pace thanks also to factors such as the presidentialization of American politics and the inefficiencies of congressional lawmaking. While the first part of the essay places the presidential administrative power in an historical perspective, focusing mainly upon the past thirty-five years, the second part is dedicated to shed light on the use made by Barack Obama of the presidential administrative action. The final result is a sketch of the main trends in the historical development of presidential administrative practices that nowadays make a valuable legacy to any incoming President and specifically to Donald Trump. Indeed these main trends may have important implications both as a source of legitimation for any presidential unilateral action as well as a springboard for the introduction of new and creative practices of executive power.