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Executive Power in Crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2021

KENNETH LOWANDE Open the ORCID record for KENNETH LOWANDE [Opens in a new window]  and
JON C. ROGOWSKI Open the ORCID record for JON C. ROGOWSKI [Opens in a new window]
KENNETH LOWANDE*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
JON C. ROGOWSKI*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
*
Kenneth Lowande, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, lowande@umich.edu.
Jon C. Rogowski, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, jrogowski@uchicago.edu.
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Abstract

Major crises can threaten political regimes by empowering demagogues and promoting authoritarian rule. While existing research argues that national emergencies weaken formal checks on executive authority and increase public appetites for strong leadership, no research evaluates whether crises increase mass support for the president’s institutional authority. We study this question in the context of the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic with an experiment embedded in a national survey of more than 8,000 U.S. adults. We find no evidence that the public evaluated policies differently if they were implemented via unilateral power rather than through the legislative process, nor did the severity of the pandemic at either the state, local, or individual levels moderate evaluations of executive power. Instead, individuals’ partisan and ideological views were consistently strong predictors of policy attitudes. Perhaps paradoxically, our results suggest that elite and mass polarization limit the opportunity for crises to promote public acceptance of strengthened executive authority.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 115 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 1406 - 1423
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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