Executive orders are not a viable route around political gridlock

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama told Congress that if they continued to obstruct rather than act, he would move forward wherever he could without them. One avenue for such initiatives could be the increased use of executive orders; however, it is unclear if the president can actually wield true power in this way. Using data on executive orders from 1947-2003, Fang-Yi Chiou and Lawrence S. Rothenberg examine whether and how the president’s supposedly independent actions are constrained by outside forces. They conclude the president cannot achieve true additional power through unilateral action and executive orders are unlikely to provide a means to work around a gridlocked political process.