America's founding fathers designed the Constitution as a malleable contract for governance, envisioning a republic with a struggle among co-equal actors that would serve to constrain and channel the struggle for power. The problem this study was designed to address is that presidents have used executive orders (EOs) when legislation is too difficult to pass due to divided party government, or when making sweeping changes to executive departments or agencies that historically required congressional approval. The purpose of this analysis was to explore whether a contemporary Democratic president are more likely than a Republican to use the EO as a unilateral strategy to pursue domestic/economic policy objectives during times of divided party government. This study compared the use of executive orders under divided government by Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic President Barack Obama, examining three EOs issued by each.

Reagan and Obama viewed government differently. President Obama saw government as a solution to problems and President Reagan saw government as a source of problems. From this, I inferred that Democrats would be more likely than Republicans to favor federal government intervention in domestic/economic policy. Yet, though both presidents had different agendas and approaches, they both used the EO as a unilateral strategy under divided government. This may reflect that presidents understand that many in the public hold the president accountable for the economic performance of the United States, and economic wellbeing may lead to reelection of a president.