War, the War Power, and the War Powers Resolution of 1973: A Study in American Political Development

This doctoral thesis uses the methodology and methods of American Political Development (APD) to answer the following research question: Why did the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (WPR) fail to realize its goal of reasserting congressional control over the war power?

The thesis reviews the prevalent scholarly approaches to the war powers and the WPR and finds them inadequate. It takes the innovative approach of treating the subjects as developmental questions and adopts the definition of political development offered by Orren and Skowronek as “a durable shift in governing authority”. It first operationalizes that definition by analysing the constitutional foundations of the war power and its subsequent development through World War II. That period produced a shift in governing authority over the war power across the spectrum of conflict, in declared and undeclared wars, punitive expeditions and operations to protect Americans overseas, and in the realm of emergency powers short of hostilities.

Further operationalizing the Orren and Skowronek definition, the thesis provides a comprehensive legislative history of the WPR and frames it as a challenge to the shift in governing authority, and hence a test of its durability. Introducing declassified presidential documents from the Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton Administrations into war powers scholarship for the first time, the thesis reviews how they responded to the congressional challenge. It answers the overall research question by determining that the WPR failed because Presidents Ford through Clinton, empowered by the expertise of unelected officials on their staffs and fortified by a series of pro-presidential precedents that had accrued over time, developed the WPR through a series of formative acts which rendered the law manageable to the presidency.