This excellent book by two University of Texas political scientists examines the contemporary cult of executive secrecy. Along the way, it contributes to academic debates surrounding the nature and development of presidential power, as well as to the wider critique of post-9/11 presidential power assertion.

At the theoretical level, Pallitto and Weaver align themselves with those writers who challenge the classic “bargaining” model of executive authority offered by Richard Neustadt. They appeal, rather, to Theodore Lowi's idea that Presidents possess both “fast track” options – the ability to act unilaterally and to exploit a presidentially defined crisis – as well as “slow track” authority, involving consensus-building and bargaining. Political conditions after the 9/11 attacks, according to Pallitto and Weaver, “presented the Bush administration with an enormous opportunity – some might say necessity – to transfer vast amounts of slow track material to the fast track” (14). Like other critics of recent presidential aggrandisement, the authors criticize the US Congress for its lack of institutional backbone. Their principal target, however, is the judiciary. The courts, even more spectacularly and damagingly than Congress, have (according to the authors) effectively abdicated control over executive secrecy. Judges have failed “to maintain separation of powers in the area of national security” (17).

The heart of the book is a detailed analysis of recent expansion in the unilateral presidential ability to effect secrecy in various ways: to classify information; to invoke a murky (and, the authors argue, unfounded) “state secrets” prerogative; to wield powers delegated by post-9/11 legislation, notably the Patriot Act and measures relating both to immigration and to the establishment of the homeland security bureaucracy; to undertake domestic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA – a 1978 law, originally intended to reduce presidential discretion); and also to apply “executive privilege.”

The discussion is consistently lucid, measured and informative. Some sections, such as that on the “shadow presidency” in the Attorney General's Office, are really outstanding. The discussion of historical precedents for contemporary power assertions is sometimes a little sketchy. I would also have liked more direct and detailed discussion of the provenance of the central White House doctrine of the “unitary executive.” Generally, however, the authors do a brilliant job in arguing the case for democratic constitutionalism.