The Politics of War Powers and Presidents | Prof. Sarah Burns

Does the U.S. President have too much unilateral power when it comes to military action? Should Congress exercise more power? Prof. Sarah Burns argues that the original intention of the Constitution was to have war powers more divided between the Executive Branch and Congress. So how did Presidents gain so much power? When was the last formal declaration of war? And what does so much executive power mean for us today when we are so politically polarized and divided? This lecture is based on her new book, "The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism."

Prof. Burns argues that even when Congress does provide initial authorization for larger military operations, they no longer provide strict parameters or clear end dates. The separation of powers is not functioning the way it was originally intended. As a result, one president after another has initiated and carried out poorly developed and poorly executed military policy. Burns’s conclusion—after tracing changes through Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration, the Cold War, the War Powers Resolution of 1973, and the War on Terror and the associated actions of our most recent presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump—is that U.S. presidents now command a dangerous degree of unilateral power.

This talk was recorded on November 16, 2020.

Sarah Burns is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rochester Institute of Technology, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies, and a fellow at the Quincy Institute. Her research examines the process of constitutional design in the United States using Montesquieu’s understanding of the separation of powers to develop a model for salutary institutions.

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Видео The Politics of War Powers and Presidents | Prof. Sarah Burns канала Institute for Humane Studies