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James Pfiffner

University Professor

Email: pfiffner@gmu.edu
Web: http://gemini.gmu.edu/pfiffner

Main: 703-993-1417
Fax: 703-993-2284

4400 University Drive – MS 3C6
Fairfax, Virginia 22030

James P. Pfiffner is University Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. His major areas of expertise are the Presidency, American National Government, and Public Management. He has lectured on these topics at universities in Europe and throughout the United States as well as at the Federal Executive Institute, the National War College, the U.S. Military Academy, and at the State, Justice, and Defense Departments. In 2007 he was the S.T. Lee Professorial Fellow in the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

He has written or edited a dozen books on the presidency and American National Government, including The Strategic Presidency: Hitting the Ground Running and Power Play: The Bush Presidency and the Constitution. He has also published many articles on the presidency and public management in professional journals, reference works, and the popular press. He has been interviewed regularly by print and electronic media.

Professor Pfiffner has been a panel member or on project staffs of the Volcker Commission, the National Academy of Public Administration (of which he is an elected member), the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the National Academy of Sciences. His professional experience includes service in the Director's Office of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (1980-81), and he has been a member of the faculty at the University of California, Riverside and California State University, Fullerton. In 1990 he received the Distinguished Faculty Award at George Mason University. He is listed in Who's Who In America.

While serving with the 25th Infantry Division (1/8 Artillery) in 1970 he received the Army Commendation of Medal for Valor in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Areas of Research

American Government and Politics
Federal Government (US)
Presidency
Presidential Transitions
Public Administration

Click here for entire CV

Education
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison: Political Science

M.A. University of Wisconsin, Madison: Political Science

B.A. University of Wisconsin, Madison: Political Science

Experience
2001
University Professor, School of Public Policy, George Mason University

2007 (Jan-July)
S.T. Lee Professorial Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London

1984-2001
Professor of Government and Politics (Associate Professor, GMU, 1984-87)

1980-84
California State University, Fullerton, Associate Professor of Political Science

1980-81
U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Special Assistant, Office of the Director

1978-80
California State University, Fullerton, Assistant Professor of Political Science

1975-78
University of California, Riverside, Assistant Professor of Political Science

1974-75
Brookings Institution, Research Fellow (Guest Scholar: 1983, 1997)

1971-74
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Teaching Assistant

1969-70
U.S. Army, Vietnam/Cambodia (A Battery, 1/8 Artillery, 25th Infantry Division)

University Professor, School of Public Policy, George Mason University, 2001-

Books
Intelligence and National Security Policy Making on Iraq: British and American Views (co-edited with Mark Phythian), Manchester University Press, 2008.

Power Play: The Bush Administration and the Constitution (Brooking Institution, 2008).

Understanding the Presidency, 5th ed., co-edited with Roger H. Davidson (NY: Longman, 2008).

The Modern Presidency, 5th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2007).

The Character Factor: How We Judge America’s Presidents (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2004).

Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency
General editor: David Abshire (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001)
I am listed as “Executive Editor” for The Center for the Study of the Presidency. I edited 75 brief (1000 words) case studies and wrote five cases. I also wrote the concluding chapter (cited below) to the volume.

The Future of Merit: Twenty Years after the Civil Service Reform Act, co-edited with Douglas A. Brook (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center & Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

The Managerial Presidency, 2nd ed., edited, (Texas A&M University Press, 1999).

Governance and American Politics: Classic and Current Perspectives, edited, (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1995).

The Presidency and the Persian Gulf War, co-edited with Marcia Whicker and Raymond Moore (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1993).

The Presidency in Transition, co-edited, (NY: Center for the Study of the Presidency, 1989).

The Strategic Presidency: Hitting the Ground Running (Chicago: Dorsey Press,1988)
(Second edition: Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1996).

The President and Economic Policy, edited (Philadelphia, PA: ISHI Press, 1986).

The President, the Budget, and Congress: Impoundment and the 1974 Budget Act(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979)

Editor: special issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly (co-edited with Marcia Whicker):
The Clinton Presidency in Crisis, Vol. XXVIII, No. 4, (Fall 1998).

Editor: special issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly: Presidential Decision Making, Vol. 35, No. 2 (June 2005).

Scholarly Journal Articles
“Executive Power: George W. Bush and the Constitution,”Presidential Studies Quarterly (March 2008), pp. 124-144.

“The Institutionalist: A Conversation with Hugh Heclo,” Public Administration Review Vol.. 67, No. 3 (May/June 2007), pp. 418-423. [conducted and edited interview with Heclo]

“Marching in Time: Alliance Politics, Synchrony, and the Case for War in Iraq, 2002-2003,” co-authored with Mark Phythian, Rod Tiffen, and Alan Doig.
Australian Journal of International Affairs, March 2007.

“The First MBA President: George W. Bush as Public Administrator,” Public Administration Review, January/February 2007.

“U.S. Obligations for the Treatment of Prisoners,” Virginia Lawyer, Vol. 95, No. 4 (December 2006), pp. 44-49.

“Les decisions de guerre de George W. Bush: ‘’Afghanistan et l’IrakPolitique Americaine No. 5, (Ete-Automne, 2006), pp. 35-52.

“Torture and Public Policy,” Public Integrity Vol. 7, no. 4 (Fall 2005), pp. 313-330.

“Presidential Decision Making: Rationality, Advisory Systems, and Personality,” Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 35, No. 2 (June 2005), pp. 217-228.

“Did President Bush Mislead the Country in His Arguments for War with Iraq?,”Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 34, No. 1 (March 2004), pp. 25-46.

“The Electoral College and the Framers’ Distrust of Democracy,” with Jason Hartke, White House Studies Vol. 3, No. 3 (2003), pp. 261-272.

“President George W. Bush and His War Cabinet,”Foreign Policy Bulletin (Winter 2003), pp. 288-296.

“Elliot L. Richardson: Exemplar of Integrity and Public Service,” Public Integrity Vol. 5, No. 3 (Summer 2003), pp. 251-269. Won award from the Ethics Section of the American Society for Public Administration for outstanding article published in 2003.

“Ranking the Presidents: Continuity and Volatility,” White House Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2003), pp. 23-34. Reprinted in Meena Bose and Mark Landis, eds. The Uses and Abuses of Presidential Ratings (Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2004) forthcoming.

“Judging Presidential Character,” Public Integrity, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter 2002-2003), pp. 7-24.

“George Washington’s Character and Slavery” White House Studies, Vol 1, No. 4, ( 2001), pp. 351-461. Reprinted in: Robert P. Watson, ed., Contemporary Presidential Studies:; A Reader(NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2003), pp. 3-12.

“The White House Office of Presidential Personnel,” (with Bradley Patterson) Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol 31, No. 3 (September 2001), pp. 415-438.
[A longer version of this article was prepared by the authors for the White House 2001 project, directed by Martha Kumar and financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts. It was 4 one of a series of papers on the primary White House Offices prepared for the 2001 transition. The papers were read and used by the incoming Bush transition team.]
Reprinted in: The White House World edited by Martha Kumar and Terry Sullivan (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press), pp. 165-192.

Book Chapters
“Introduction: Policy-Making and Intelligence on Iraq,” with Mark Phythian, In James P. Pfiffner and Mark Phythian, eds. Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives (UK: Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2008).

“Decision Making, Intelligence, and the Iraq War,” in James P. Pfiffner and Mark Phythian, eds.Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives (UK: Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2008).

“The Ethics of Interrogation: Torture and Public Management,” in Derek S. Reveron and Judith Hicks Stiehm, eds., Inside Defense: Understanding the U.S. Military NY: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2008.

“Intelligence and Decision Making Before the War with Iraq,” in George C. Edwards and Desmond King, eds., The Polarized Presidency of George W. Bush (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 213-242.

“Presidential Leadership and Advice about Going to War,” in Terry L. Price and J. Thomas Wren, eds., The Values of Presidential Leadership (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 135-157.

“Partisan Polarization, Politics, and the Presidency: Structural Sources of Conflict,” in James A. Thurber, ed. Rivals For Power: Presidential Congressional Relations (Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield, 2006), pp. 33-58.

“Do Presidents Lie?”, in George C. Edwards, Readings in Presidential Politics (Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2006), pp. 159-181.

“The Decision to Go to War with Iraq,” in Richard J. Stillman, Public Administration: Concepts and Cases (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), pp. 203-214.

“National Security Policymaking and the Bush War Cabinet,” in Richard Conley, ed. Transforming the American Polity: The Presidency of George W. Bush and the War on Terrorism (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004).

“George W. Bush: Policy, Politics, and Personality,” in George C. Edwards III and Philip John Davies, eds., New Challenges for the American Presidency (NY: Pearson/Longman, 6 2004), pp.161-181.

“Ranking the Presidents: Continuity and Volatility,” in Meena Bose and Mark Landis, eds., The Uses and Abuses of Presidential Ratings (Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2004), pp. 27-42.

“Traditional Public Administration versus The New Public Management: Accountability versus Efficiency” Festschrift for Professor Klaus Konig of Speyer, Germany. in Institutionenwandel in Regierung und Verwaltung: Festschrift fur Klaus Konig, Arthur Benz, HHeinrich Siedentopf, and Karl-Peter Sommermann, eds. (Berlin, Germany: Duncker & Humblot, 2004), pp. 443-454.

“Assessing the Bush Presidency,” in Gary L. Gregg and Mark J. Rozell, eds. Considering the Bush Presidency (NY: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 1-20.

“George H.W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton,” Chapter 10 in Organizing the Presidency by Stephen Hess (Washington: Brookings, 2002), pp. 146-164.

“The Transformation of the Bush Presidency,” in James P. Pfiffner and Roger Davidson, eds. Understanding the Presidency, 3rd edition (NY: Longman, 2002), pp. 453-471.

“Reevaluating the Electoral College” in James P. Pfiffner and Roger Davidson, eds. Understanding the Presidency, 3rd edition (NY: Longman, 2002), pp. 57-72.

“Presidential Appointments: Recruiting Executive Branch Leaders” inInnocent Until Nominated: the Breakdown of the Presidential Appointments Process, edited by G. Calvin Mackenzie (Washington: Brookings, 2001), pp. 50-80. A 2500 word version of the chapter was published in The Brookings Review (Spring 2001), pp. 41-44.

“The President and Congress at the Turn of the Century: Structural Sources of Conflict,” in Rivals For Power, ed. By James A. Thurber (Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield, 2002), pp. 27-48.

“Presidents in Crisis: Watergate, Iran-Contra, and President Clinton’s Impeachment” in Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency, ed David Abshire (Wesport, CT: Praeger, 2001), pp. 284-300.

Distinguished Faculty Award, George Mason University (1990)

Visiting Scholar (Summers 1983, Spring 1997)

John Brown Mason Professorship, California State University, Fullerton (1983-84).

National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration Faculty Fellowship (1981-82)

Brookings Institution, Brookings Fellow (1974-75)

Army Commendation Medal for Valor (with "V" Device), Vietnam/Cambodia (1970)

Books
Pfiffner, J.P., Torture as Public Policy (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2010).

Pfiffner, J. P., Phythian, M., eds. Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives. Manchester University Press, co-published by Texas A&M University Press, 2008.

Pfiffner, J. P. Power Play: The Bush Administration and the Constitution. Washington, DC: Brooking Press, 2008.

Pfiffner, J. P., and R. H. Davidson, eds. Understanding the Presidency, 5th ed. NY: Longman, 2008.

Pfiffner, J. P. The Modern Presidency, 5th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2007.

Pfiffner, J. P., and R. Davidson, eds. Understanding the Presidency. New York: Longman Press, 2007.

Pfiffner, J. P. a. R. D., ed. Understanding the Presidency. New York, Pearson Longman, 2006.

Editor: special issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly: Presidential Decision Making, Vol. 35, No. 2 (June 2005).

Book Sections
Pfiffner, J. P., and M. Phythian. “Introduction: Policy-Making and Intelligence on Iraq.” In James P. Pfiffner and Mark Phythian, eds. Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives. UK: Manchester University Press (2008).

Pfiffner, J. P. “Decision Making, Intelligence, and the Iraq War.” In James P. Pfiffner and Mark Phythian, eds. Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives, UK: Manchester University Press (2008).

Pfiffner, J. P. “The Ethics of Interrogation: Torture and Public Management.” In Derek S. Reveron and Judith Hicks Stiehm, eds., Inside Defense: Understanding the U.S. Military NY: Palgrave Macmillan (2008).

Pfiffner, J. P. "Intelligence and Decision Making before the War with Iraq." In The Polarized Presidency of George W. Bush, edited by G. Edwards and D. King. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Pfiffner, J. P. "Presidential Leadership and Advice About Going to War." In The Values of Presidential Leadership, edited by T. Price and J. T. Wren. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.

Pfiffner, J. P. "Torture as Public Policy." In Combating Corruption, Encouraging Ethics, 2nd Edition, edited by W. Richter and F. Burke. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.

Pfiffner, J. P. "Do Presidents Lie?" In Readings in Presidential Politics. Belmont, CA, Thompson Wadsworth: 159-181, 2006.

Pfiffner, J. P. "Partisan Polarization, Politics, and the Presidency: Structural Sources of Conflict." In Rivals For Power: Presidential Congressional Relations. J. Thurber. Lanham, MD, Roman & Littlefield: 33-58, 2006.

Pfiffner, J. P. “Pardon Power.” In The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, edited by Matthew Spalding & David Forte, 203-205. Washington: Regenery, 2005.

Pfiffner, J. P. “Recommendation Clause.” In The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, edited by Matthew Spalding & David Forte, 217-219. Washington: Regnery, 2005.

Pfiffner, J. P.. “The Decision to Go to War with Iraq.” In Richard J. Stillman, Public Administration: Concepts and Cases. Boston: Houghton Mifflin: 203-214, (2005).

Editorships
Pfiffner, J. P., ed. of book series The Presidency and Leadership. Texas A&M University Press, 2008.

Journal Articles
Pfiffner, J.P. “Decision Making in the Bush White House.” Presidential Studies Quarterly. 39 No. 2 (2009): 363-384.

Pfiffner, J.P. “Presidential Signing Statements and Their Implications for Public Administration.” Public Administration Review Vol. 69, No. 2 (March/April 2009): 249-255.

Pfiffner, J. P. “Constraining Executive Power: George W. Bush and the Constitution.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 38, no. 1 (2008): 124-144.

Pfiffner, J. P. "The Institutionalist: A Conversation with Hugh Heclo." Public Administration Review 67, no. 3 (2007): 418-23.

Pfiffner, J. P. , M. Phythian, R. Tiffen, and A. Doig. "Marching in Time: Alliance Politics, Synchrony, and the Case for War in Iraq, 2002-2003." Australian Journal of International Affairs (2007).

Pfiffner, J. P. "The First M.B.A. President: George W. Bush as Public Administrator." Public Administration Review 67, no. 1 (2007): 6-20.

Pfiffner, J. P. "U.S. Obligations for the Treatment of Prisoners." Virginia Lawyer 95(4) (2006): 44-49.

Pfiffner, J. P. "Les decisions de guerre de George W. Bush: Afghanistan et l'Irak." Politique Ameriaine (5) (2006): 35-52.

Pfiffner, J. P. “Torture and Public Policy.” Public Integrity 7, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 313-30.

Pfiffner, J. P. “Presidential Decision Making: Rationality, Advisory Systems and Personality.” Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 35, no. 2 (June 2005): 217-28.

Presentations and Proceedings
Pfiffner, J. P. “Campaigns, Transitions, and Congress.” Presented at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., 2008.

Pfiffner, J. P. “Policy Making in the Bush White House.” Presented at the American Political Science Association Convention, Boston, MA, 2008.

Pfiffner, J. P. “The Presidency and Ethics.” Presented at Center for Ethics, Yeshiva University, New York, NY, 2008.

Pfiffner, J. P. “George W. Bush and the Use of Executive Power.” Presented at Conference on the Presidency of George W. Bush, Villanova University, 2008.

Pfiffner, J. P. Presentation on presidential transitions. Presented at National Academy of Public Administration Fall Meeting, Washington, D.C., 2008.

Honors
S.T. Lee Professional Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2007

Who’s Who in America, 2000, edition

College of Arts and Sciences, Scholarly Award, George Mason University, 1999

National Academy of Public Administration, elected member

Distinguished Faculty Award, George Mason University (1990)

Visiting Scholar (Summers 1983, Spring 1997)

John Brown Mason Professorship, California State University, Fullerton (1983-84)

National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration Faculty Fellowship (1981-82)

Brookings Institution, Brookings Fellow (1974-75)

Army Commendation Medal for Valor (with "V" Device), Vietnam/Cambodia (1970)

Quick Facts

Ranked, by the National Science Foundation, as the number one program in its field for federal and total research expenditures.

Faculty have received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and are Fulbright Scholars and Mellon Fellowship recipients.

In 2007 and 2008, The School’s 45 faculty produced 21 books, 61 book chapters, 14 edited volumes, and 75 refereed journal articles.

For 2007 and 2008 The School’s sponsored research expenditures totaled $17 million, faculty submitted 179 proposals, and The School supported 43 doctoral students.

Research per full-time faculty member for FY 07-08 totaled $123,030, making SPP among the largest funded in the university.

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