Introduction:
1. Avoiding Tyranny at the Founding
2. The Rise of Presidential Power
3. Declining to Adjudicate Claims Against the President
4. Implied Presidential and Congressional Power
5. The Specter of Dictatorship: Poland, Hungary and Turkey
6. Parallels to America's Democratic Erosion
7. Judicial Treatment of Presidential Power in an Age of Democratic
Decline
Conclusion:
David M. Driesen is University Professor in the College of Law at Syracuse University. He is the author of The Economic Dynamics of Law (2012).
"David Driesen has written an eloquent and powerful account of the Framers' concern about 'tyranny' and their profound commitment to democracy. His careful historical scholarship and deft analysis of doctrine demonstrate clearly the ways that growing presidential power has imperiled this principle. An urgent and compelling read not just for today's crises, but for understanding the basic dynamics of American democracy and its antagonists."—Aziz Z. Huq, University of Chicago Law School "A book for our troubled times. Blending history, law, and politics, David Driesen situates the Trump presidency in the alarming global trend toward autocracy and diagnoses what currently ails democracy in America. Richly detailed, highly informative, and deeply contextual, this book is required reading to understand the forces threatening the liberal democratic values of modern constitutionalism."—Richard Albert, The University of Texas at Austin "Constitutional drafters often establish semi-autonomous executive institutions to serve as guardrails of democracy. Over the past several decades, conservative lawyers and judges in the U.S. have systematically targeted such bureaucratic independence as inconsistent with the constitutional theory of a 'unitary executive.' Driesen masterfully lays bare the previously underappreciated role played by unitary executive theory in ongoing processes of democratic erosion."—Thomas M. Keck, Syracuse University "The Specter of Dictatorship is alarming without being alarmist, as Driesen describes serious challenges to democratic well-being yet offers some hope that American democracy can survive. The book is written in highly accessible prose and manages to make connections to existing scholarship and legal cases without being overly academic."—Graham G. Dodds, New Political Science
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