The American President

An Office and Its Powers (Expanding Power & The Balance of Power) (1x5)

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Expanding Power: Though the powers of the presidency have expanded with the growth of the nation, the process has been anything but smooth. The prerogatives of the presidency are uncertain and their assertion is invariably contested. These four presidencies are benchmarks in the development of executive power. We see here the emergence in practice of our modern conception of the executive office, and we take the measure of the men who fought to sustain it. The Balance of Power: This final episode examines presidential leadership in an era of an increasingly divided government. The American presidency was conceived as one part of a larger system of institutions, and its effectiveness rests in part upon a good measure of cooperation among the branches. As our constitutional system has developed, however, this cooperation has broken down at crucial junctures. The presidents arrayed in this episode suggest four different conceptions of governance within a constitutionally structured balancing act.