This book examines the effects of institutional division and sharing of powers between the president and the Congress and its subsequent impact on U.S. policymaking. The author's "dynamic constitutionalism" theory of policymaking proposes that the constitution is the major determinant of legislative behavior. Specifically, the president and Congress operate in a bounded system of governance that often reflects inter-institutional division of labor and cooperation. Banking legislation for the 1823- 1986 is used to test this theory. The findings of this study can be summarized in a fourfold manner. First, members of Congress (MC's) are primarily responsible for the development of most legislative initiatives. Second, presidential involvement in matters of legislation heighten as this process evolves. Third, presidents are most attentive to important policy initiatives while MC's are responsible for a broader range of policies. Finally, presidents need the support of key MC's to get their own initiatives acted upon.

The strengths of this book are notable. The framework proposed in this study is more comprehensive than previous research on legislative policymaking. This completeness cuts along both temporal and institutional lines. The policy history material on banking policy is extremely insightful without being excessive. The biggest strength of this book is its disaggregated analysis. The subtleties and distinctions associated with presidential- congressional influence over bank legislation are clearly shown. As a result, the author successfully distinguishes her work from previous research in this area.

However, this book does have some significant shortcomings. On a substantive level, the revelation that presidents are not as involved in matters of banking legislation compared to MC's is hardly a novel observation. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the author finds that presidential influence is limited in the bank regulation case. This, in turn, has negative implications for the generalizability of this study to other policy venues. The genralizability of this study could have been strengthened if the author had studied a policy area where both the president and Congress both played a regular role as an active governmental participant. Ripley and Franklin's (1991) policy typology suggests that redistributive policymaking tends to exhibit a greater balance of legislative and policy formulation activity between presidents and Congress. An analysis of a case study entailing a redistributive policy of some significant historical span would have been a more robust test of the author's theory of institutional influence over legislative policymaking. While the author does a fine job of demonstrating that presidential involvement is intermittent, the fact that presidents find it in their best interest to use administrative channels (e.g., OMB regulatory reviews, resources, appointments, etc.) as a means of influencing the content of public policy (especially in areas concerning regulation) is all but ignored.

In addition, the author's criticism of "presidency-centered" research on policymaking is unfounded. The question posed by this research (as well as Mark Peterson's fine book Legislating Together, 1990) and the "presidency-centered" research noted in this book are distinct from one another. The former body of works attempt to examine the institutional balance of power between the president and Congress, while the latter seeks to explain how successful presidents are in the legislative arena via persuasion, utilization of political capital, and other means at their disposal. The author appears to contradict her unmitigated criticism of "presidency-centered" research by properly stating in several instances that presidents need strong support from committee chairs, or at least members of the banking committees to get bills reported out of committee, and eventually passed into law. This statement is consistent with the basic premise of "presidency-centered" research.

In sum, both the theoretical and empirical analyses are the strengths of this book. However, both the findings and subsequent inferences made by the author will not be astonishing to those familiar with the body of research on presidential- congressional relations and the politics of banking regulation. Nonetheless, this book is a valuable contribution to both of these bodies of work because it addresses an important research issue in a theoretically innovative manner.

George A. Krause
University of South Carolina