“On My Own”?

This chapter gives a brief background of how executive orders have been used by US presidents. As a way of implementing statute in ways that hew to presidential preference, executive orders have been utilized from the Washington administration forward as an implication of the constitutional “executive power” vested in the president. Any issued order reflects presidential preferences, more or less purely enacted into action. The chapter seeks to unpack this view substantively and theoretically. Presidential action can be bound not just by legislators or judges but also by actors within the executive branch itself. The ultimate form of a given executive order may reflect agency needs, or the outcome of intrabranch negotiation, rather than pure ex ante presidential preferences.