The Presidency, Congress, and the War on Terrorism:
Scholarly Perspectives

February 7, 2003
Department of Political Science
Anderson Hall
University of Florida

Conference co-sponsored by:

The Department of Political Science and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
University of Florida International Center
Lawrence C. Dodd, Manning J. Dauer Chair, Department of Political Science

This conference will bring together nationally-distinguished scholars who specialize in the study of American national institutions to reassess our theories of presidential politics and presidential-congressional relations following the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

Conference papers on-line (in PDF format): Get Adobe Acrobate Reader here--->:

Richard S. Conley, "The Department of Homeland Security and the Dual Politics of Reorganization: Presidential Preemption, Agency Restructuring, and Congressional Challenges."

Roger Davidson, "Americans' Political Beliefs About Themselves, the World, and War: Before and After 9/11."

George C. Edwards III, "Riding High in the Polls: George W. Bush and Public Opinion."

Louis Fisher, "Civil Liberties in a Time of War."

Michael Genovese, "The Transformations of the Bush Presidency: 9/11 and Beyond."

James P. Pfiffner, "President Bush and His War Cabinet."

Barbara Sinclair, "Patriotism, Partisanship, and Institutional Protection: The Congressional Response to 9/11."

Shirley Anne Warshaw, "The Political Lens of the President's War Cabinet for the War in Afghanistan."

Conference participants will include:

Andrew Busch (Ph.D., Virginia) is associate professor of political science at the University of Denver. He is also a fellow of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs of Ashland University (Ohio). He is author of Horses in Midstream: U.S. Mid-Term Elections and Their Consequences (Pittsburgh Press, 1999) as well as a number of co-authored books on U.S. elections with James Ceasar, including The Perfect Tie (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), Upside Down and Inside Out: The 1992 Elections and American Politics (Rowman & Littlefield, 1993) and Losing to Win: The 1996 Elections and American Politics (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).

Roger H. Davidson is professor emeritus of government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park.  Currently he is visiting professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. For the 2001-2002 academic year, he was the John Marshall Chair in political science at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. His sixteen books include Remaking Congress: Change and Stability in the 1990’s, co-edited with James A. Thurber (CQ Press, 1995), and Understanding the Presidency, Second Edition, co-edited with James P. Pfiffner (Longman, 1999). Davidson is co-editor with Donald C. Bacon and Morton Keller of The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress (Simon and Schuster, 1995).

George C. Edwards III (Ph.D. , University of Wisconsin) is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. He was the founder, and from 1991-2001, the director of The Center for Presidential Studies in the Bush School. He also holds the Jordan Professorship in Liberal Arts, and has held visiting appointments at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Peking University in Beijing, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  In 2003 he will be the John Adams Fellow at the University of London.  His books include At the Margins: Presidential Leadership of Congress (Yale University Press, 1989), Presidential Approval (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), Presidential Leadership (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1997), Implementing Public Policy (Congressional Quarterly Press, 1980), and Researching the Presidency (University of Pittsburgh Press).  He is also editor of Presidential Studies Quarterly.  His current research includes a study of the effectiveness of presidential leadership of public opinion.

Louis Fisher (Ph.D., New School for Social Research) is Senior Specialist in Separation of Powers at the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.  His books include Congressional Abdication on War and Spending (Texas A&M Press, 2001), Presidential War Power (University of Kansas Press, 1995), Presidential Spending Power (Princeton University Press, 1975), The Politics of Shared Power (Texas A&M Press, 1998), Constitutional Dialogues (Princeton University Press 1988), and American Constitutional Law (Carolina Academic Press, 2001).  He has twice received the Louis Brownlow Book Award from the National Academy of Public Administration.

Michael Genovese (Ph.D., University of Southern California) currently holds the Loyola Chair of Leadership Studies, is a professor of Political Science, and is Director of the Institute for Leadership Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.  Professor Genovese has written twelve books, including A Splendid Misery: The Rise and Fall of Presidential Power (Oxford University Press, 2000), The Presidency and Domestic Policy: Comparing Leadership Styles, FDR to Clinton (with William W. Lammers, Congressional Quarterly Press, 2000), The Watergate Crisis (Greenwood Press, 1999), and The Paradoxes of the American Presidency (co-authored with Thomas E. Cronin, Oxford University Press, 1998).

Martha Joynt Kumar (Ph.D., Columbia University) is a Senior Fellow at the Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland and is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Towson University. Currently, she is at work on a book under contract with the Johns Hopkins University Press, Wired for Sound and Pictures: The President and White House Communications Policies.  Her published works include Portraying the President: The White House and the News Media and a variety of articles on presidential-press relations, including ones found in the Harvard International Journal of Press / Politics and the recent edition of Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the Presidency. She has received grants from the Ford Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 2001 she received a University of Maryland System Regents' Award for Scholarship. In 1999 she was recognized for her work on behalf of presidency scholars with the Richard E. Neustadt Award presented to her by the Presidency Research Group, a section of the American Political Science Association. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Professor Kumar is a former President of the American Political Science Association's Presidency Research Group.

James P. Pfiffner (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin) is Professor of Government and Public Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.  His major areas of expertise are the Presidency, American national government, and public management.  He has written or edited nine books on the presidency and American National Government, including The Strategic Presidency: Hitting the Ground Running (2nd edition, 1996), The Modern Presidency (Wadsworth, 1999) and Understanding the Presidency, edited with Roger Davidson (Longman, 1999).  He has been a panel member or on project staffs of the Volcker Commission, the National Academy of Public Administration (of which he is an elected member), the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the National Academy of Sciences.  His professional experience includes service in the Director's Office of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (1980-81), and he has been a member of the faculty at the University of California, Riverside and California State University, Fullerton.  In 1990 he received the Distinguished Faculty Award at George Mason University, and while serving with the 25th Infantry Division (1/8 Artillery) in 1970 he received the Army Commendation of Medal for Valor in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Barbara Sinclair (Ph.D., University of Rochester) is Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics. Her primary area of research is legislatures, especially the US Congress. She is interested in the forces that shape institutional change and policy formation. Her current research focuses on the impact of increased partisanship on the legislative process and policy outcomes in the Senate, and on how institutional structure and partisan politics interact in the United States Congress. Her research draws on interviews, participant-observation, and statistical analysis of quantitative data. Her books include Transformation of the U.S. Senate (Johns Hopkins University Press 1989), Legislators, Leaders and Lawmaking (Johns Hopkins University Press 1995) and Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U. S. Congress (CQ Press 1997, 2nd edition 2000). She was an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in the office of the House Majority Leader in 1978-79 and spent 1987-88 as an observer in the office of the Speaker of the House. Her book Transformation of the U.S. Senate won the Richard F. Fenno Prize of the Legislative Studies Section of the APSA and the D.B. Hardeman Prize given by the LBJ School.

Shirley Anne Warshaw (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University) is Professor of Political Science at Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Prior to joining the Gettsyburg faculty, Dr. Warshaw worked in the Pennsylvania state government and served in the Governor's Office for two Governors.  Dr. Warshaw has written five books on presidential decision-making and numerous book chapters and articles, including The Keys to Power: Managing the Presidency (A.W. Longman 1999), The Domestic Presidency: Decision-Making in the White House (A.W. Longman, 1996), Reexamining the Eisenhower Presidency (Greenwood, 1993), and Powersharing: White House-Cabinet Relations In the Modern Presidency (SUNY Press, 1996).  Dr. Warshaw has won numerous teaching awards and has been awarded grants for research in the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush Presidential Archives, as well as other institutions.  During the 1993-1995 academic year she served as the Associate Director of the Leadership Development Program through a grant from the US Department of Education and during the 1989-1991 academic years she served as the Executive Director of the Eisenhower International Symposium.