Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
How the Reagan administration used bureaucratic control over the Bureau of Land Management to shape public lands policy.
When presidents seek to govern through bureaucracy rather than legislation, what really changes in public policy, and at what cost?
In The Administrative Presidency Revisited, Robert F. Durant delivers a rigorous, wide-ranging analysis of how presidential power is exercised through administrative strategy. Focusing on the Bureau of Land Management during the Reagan era, Durant traces how political objectives are translated into bureaucratic action across America's public lands.
Drawing on years of meticulous empirical research, Durant moves from theory to practice, revealing how tools of executive control reshape policy outcomes on the ground. From privatization debates and grazing conflicts to wilderness designation and energy development, Durant uncovers the complex political struggles embedded in land management decisions.
Structured in three parts—The Anatomy of an Administrative Presidency, A View from the Grassroots, and Beyond Fear or Favor: Lessons for Theory and Practice—The Administrative Presidency Revisited connects high-level theories of presidential leadership with the lived realities of policy implementation.
"One of the most substantial and penetrating empirical investigations yet made into the consequences of an aggressive administrative strategy for presidential leadership." — American Political Science Review
"Robert Durant's new book is destined to become a classic. The product of years of painstaking research, The Administrative Presidency Revisited is brimming with findings, insights, and theoretical contributions that speak to some of the central questions of governance... The concluding chapters alone are so theoretically inventive and integrative that they are likely to provide the stimulus for further scholarship for years to come." — Laurence J. O'Toole, Jr., University of Georgia
"I am impressed by the detailed analysis of the mechanisms of the administrative-presidency strategy and the manner in which the Reagan administration applied them. This study represents an excellent example of how presidents employ their political resources in an attempt to influence bureaucratic policy." — Richard Waterman, University of New Mexico
Robert F. Durant is Professor of Government and Public Administration at the William Donald Schaefer Center for Public Policy, University of Baltimore.
List of Tables and Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART I. THE ANATOMY OF AN ADMINISTRATIVE PRESIDENCY
1. A Passion to Prevail
2. Prometheus Unbound or Sisyphus Redux
3. Public Lands, the BLM, and the Reagan Revolution
PART II. A VIEW FROM THE GRASSROOTS
4. Politics, Position, and Power Production
5. Backdoor Privatization, "Cold Welfare," and the BLM
6. Toward Becoming a "Good Urban Neighbor"? Or, "You're Not a Man Till You Do a Land Exchange"
7. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Water
8. Wilderness, King Coal, and the San Juan Basin
PART III. BEYOND FEAR OR FAVOR: LESSONS FOR THEORY AND PRACTICE
9. Missing Links, Links Gone Missing, and Natural Resource Management
10. "Fire Alarms," "Garbage Cans," and the Administrative Presidency
Notes
References
Index
About the Author