Prior Events in This Series

Click here for a complete list and webcasts of prior events in the Choosing the Presidency series.

The American Presidency at War

September 19, 2008

Co-sponsored with the UC Berkeley School of Law
Lipman Room, 8th Floor, Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley
(For location of Barrows Hall, see campus map)
Further details to be announced

Does the president need more power abroad and at home in the post-9/11 world, or has the president already become too dominant, overriding the constitutional separation of powers? What role should the courts, Congress, public opinion and the press play in checking presidential actions in the Iraq War and beyond in a world where the opponent in a military conflict may not be a sovereign state? What if the state of war seems likely to persist indefinitely? This conference seeks to examine these critical questions in an expansive way, drawing together scholars from a number of different subfields in political science as well as constitutional law and history.

 

Event Schedule

Continental Breakfast
8:45 am - 9:15 am

PANEL 1: War and Presidential Politics

9:15 - 10:45 a.m.

This panel examines how the president’s standing with the public is affected by wartime actions. How has partisanship historically impacted evaluations of a president during wartime? Does the casualty rate reduce a president’s job approval rating and reelection prospects? Does the nature of the particular war affect these outcomes?

Chair: David Karol (UC Berkeley)
Panelists: Matt Baum (UCLA)
John Mueller (Ohio State University)
Adam Berinsky (MIT)
Discussant: Gary Jacobson (UC San Diego)

PANEL 2: The Imperial Presidency and the Founding

11:00 am - 12:45 pm

What kind of powers does the Constitution grant the president during times of emergencies? How did the Framers envision the legislative and judicial branches checking presidential war power?

Chair: Jesse Choper (Boalt Hall)
Panelists: John Yoo (Boalt Hall)
Jack Rakove (Stanford University)
Louis Fisher (Specialist in Constitutional Law, Law Library of the Library of Congress)
Discussant: Gordon Silverstein (UC Berkeley)

Lunch
12:45 pm - 2:00 pm

PANEL 3: Rethinking Presidential Power in the 21st Century

2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Do conditions in the post-9/11 world mandate a change in our thinking about the proper scope of presidential action? What lessons can we apply from historical exercises of presidential power to the Iraq War?

Chair: To be determined
Panelists: Stephen Skowronek (Yale University)
Philip C. Bobbitt (Columbia Law School)
William Howell (University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy)

Keynote: "The View from the White House in Time of War"

4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Introduction: Dean Christopher Edley (Boalt Hall)
Speakers: Leon Panetta and Ken Mehlman

Dinner
by invitation)
6:00 - 8:00 pm