Regulator-in-Chief: The Presidency, Red Tape, and the Transformation of the Administrative State, 1975-1981

This dissertation examines the growth of presidential power after the 1974 Watergate scandal. Traditionally, scholars of American Political Development and American legal history attribute the reemergence of executive power in the late twentieth century to President Reagan and his administration's sweeping attempts to slash federal regulations. Conversely, this project shows that a coalition of Democrats working in the Carter Administration centralized presidential power ahead of the Reagan Era in response to the economic crises of the mid and late 1970s. In doing so, however, Carter aides laid the groundwork for the sweeping deregulation of the Reagan Revolution.