As the title suggests, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic aims to provoke attention, debate and no little alarm. In discussing the evolution and expansion of presidential power, Bruce Ackerman paints a bleak picture, emphasizing the very real threat he believes that these developments pose to the constitutional order of the United States. Yet, to his credit, the book offers more than a warning. Confident of the potential of his work to encourage debate and, he hopes, action, The Decline and Fall prescribes a number of reforms to halt the encroachment of executive authority.

The expansion of the presidency far beyond the vision of the nation's founders has, of course, been considered elsewhere; Ackerman recognizes the particular debt his thesis owes to Arthur Schlesinger's 1973 classic, The Imperial Presidency. However, in his clearly structured and persuasively argued narrative, Ackerman emphasizes the institutional developments that have greatly exacerbated this trend in the intervening years. His first target is the process of presidential nominations through which, he argues, “extremist” candidates can gather momentum in state primaries. Mobilizing partisan support on the hard right or left through Internet campaigning, while peddling more centrist rhetoric outside the blogosphere, a charismatic candidate could generate a broad appeal sufficient to propel them to the White House. The circumstance may appear extreme. However, Ackerman makes clear that he is highlighting the worst-case scenario. Indeed, conceding his indulgence in “crystal-ball-gazing,” his approach continues to rest on the discussion of a series of potential crises arising from a number of further institutional developments.

The politicization of the military receives particular attention. Colouring his prognosis with several examples from recent history, Ackerman illustrates the threat to traditional civilian control posed by the growing power of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The presidency, though, remains Ackerman's central concern. Drawing particular evidence from the actions of the George W. Bush administration, he predicts an increasing tendency for Presidents to invoke emergency powers. An analysis then follows of the declining authority of the Supreme Court to check the excesses (or “power grabs”) of the presidency and the simultaneous rise in the role of the executive's legal department. Lending a sheen of authority to initiatives deemed imperative by the administration, writes Ackerman, the President's lawyers may discourage the Supreme Court from “confronting a runaway President,” while convincing the public of the legitimacy and necessity of their agenda.

So convinced is he of the gravity of the threat to America's constitutional traditions that Ackerman predicts in this century a “quantum leap in the presidency's destructive capacities” (119). Yet his book remains more alarming than alarmist. True, many of the crisis scenarios he explores rely on the conjunction of specific circumstances while some are based more on prediction than on experience. However, the numerous examples he cites from recent history prove not only that such circumstances could arise, but that, with Bush's “war on terror” a notable instance, they already have arisen. Regarding each of the problems and threats he has outlined, he therefore leaves us with a suggested measure of reform. To restore political dialogue and press transparency prior to elections, he proposes both a “Deliberation Day” dedicated to public debate on issues and policy, and a national endowment to reward the best investigative journalism. A new “Canon of Military Ethics,” moreover, could clarify “the meaning of civilian control,” while a “Supreme Executive Tribunal,” confirmed by the Senate, could adjudicate on the opinions of presidential lawyers.

Inevitably one wonders what impact warning calls such as Ackerman's can have. Perhaps the most admirable aspect of his work, though, is that, fully aware of this, he nevertheless explains his proposals in close detail: more a blueprint for adoption than hypothetical ponderings. He succeeds, furthermore, in offering Americans a convincing argument for the renewal of the Constitution that recognizes both the limits of its framers and the very different circumstances of their time. The defence of America's constitutional traditions will, he concludes, not be achieved through “ancestor worship,” but only through fundamental institutional reform.