Andrew Rudalevige

Andy Rudalevige arrived at Bowdoin in 2012 after twelve years in the political science department at Dickinson College, most recently as Walter E. Beach ’56 Distinguished Chair. He studies American political institutions, with an emphasis on the modern presidency, the executive branch, and interbranch relations. His most recent book is By Executive Order: Bureaucratic Management and the Limits of Presidential Power (Princeton University Press), which tracks the role of the wider executive branch in the formulation of directives normally thought of as “unilateral.” In 2022 By Executive Order won the Richard E. Neustadt Prize from the American Political Science Association honoring the best book on the presidency as well as the Louis Brownlow Prize as best book in public administration from the National Academy of Public Administration. 

His first book, Managing the President's Program: Presidential Leadership and Legislative Policy Formulation (Princeton University Press), examines the formulation and success of presidents' legislative programs in the postwar era from an informational transaction costs vantage. It was awarded the American Political Science Association's Neustadt Prize as best book on the presidency published in 2002. The New Imperial Presidency (University of Michigan Press), examines the post-Watergate growth of executive authority, not least in the "global war on terror," and was described by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., as "a grand sequel for my own The Imperial Presidency." He has co-authored a textbook on the Politics of the Presidency for CQ Press and edited a series of volumes on the Bush and Obama presidencies. (Next up: The Trump Legacy.) Current research centers on presidents' ongoing efforts to control the executive bureaucracy, including an institutional history of the Office of Management and Budget.

Rudalevige is the host of “Founding Principles,” an acclaimed video series on American government and civics, available on the Bowdoin website as well as on the national PBS LearningMedia site. You may also find his commentary on ongoing political events and their relation to political science research on the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog.

From 1989-96 Rudalevige worked in state and local politics — as a staffer in the Massachusetts Senate and as an elected Town Councilor and appointed charter commissioner in his hometown of Watertown, Massachusetts.  In 2004-05 he was a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and from 2007-09 a visiting professor at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England (home of the sometimes-Premier-League Canaries). In fall 2011 he served as visiting professor at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques ("Sciences-Po") at the University of Lyon, France. In 2016-17, he was president of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents and Executive Politics section.

Curriculum Vitae