The Theory of Executive Power

FAIN: FA-11054-74

Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr
President and Fellows of Harvard College (Cambridge, MA 02138-3800)

To write a book on the history of the notion of "executive power". The philosophers who first defined it intended to create a tension between the theory and the practice of it, they were Machiavelli, Locke and Montesquieu; and the study will concentrate on them and on the American presidency as expounded in The Federalist and other contemporary document; To expose the theory imbedded in the practice of the executive, as well as the practice contained in the theory.