Globalization and the Growth of Executive Power: An Old Story

Americans have always worried about an undue concentration of power in the executive branch. Recently, people have worried that globalization might be making the problem even worse. But the concern is overstated, or at least misstated. Globalization is not a new phenomenon, and most of its effect on executive power was realized decades ago.

And globalization might undermine executive power, rather than bolster it, either because globalization undermines the authority of the nation-state or shifts authority to technocrats. If there is a general tendency toward increased executive power in the twenty-first century, this is might attributable more directly to other factors, such as improvements in information technology, intensified electoral competition, and judicial decisions that have undermined checks on the accumulation of authority in the executive branch