Tutor profile: Will B.

What are the components of an effective essay?

Any effective essay, whatever its subject or purpose, has three components: unity, coherence, and development. Unity refers to the tendency of strong essays to present their ideas in a consistent and logically complementary way. That is to say, each of the essay's main ideas, taken together, complement each other and each relate to a broader conclusion. Coherence refers to the need to present ideas clearly and concisely: that is, with a logical and understandable argumentative structure and with clear and unambiguous language. Finally, development refers to the need to support each main idea with relevant evidence.

Evaluate the impact of several legal, constitutional, and political developments behind the rise of the "imperial presidency."

The theory of the unitary executive, by asserting that the President has plenary and centralized control over the operations of the executive branch, has contributed to an increase in Presidential power by facilitating the transformation of the office into an independent source of political and policy-making authority. Moreover, the office's status as an independent and co-equal source of constitutional authority has been established by the use of Presidential signing statements, which signal the chief executive's constitutional position on a piece of legislation by indicating which sections of the legislation he or she plans to enforce. Finally, one important political development behind the imperial presidency has been the increasing prevalence of legislative polarization, a major factor behind recent Congressional inefficacy in the policy-making sphere. This has served to transfer the policy-making initiative to the President, whose constitutional prerogatives allow him or her to interpret and expand upon congressional legislation through the use of executive orders, despite lacking any constitutional mandate to legislate in the traditional sense.

Analyze the impact of the emerging consumer economy on American foreign and domestic policy in the decades immediately following the Cold War.

The imperative to foster ongoing economic growth and thus forestall a second crisis of consumer demand comparable to the Great Depression drove postwar policymakers to expand upon the Keynesian economic framework embodied in the New Deal. At the same time, this economic framework was integrated into the context of Cold War-era geopolitics to encourage expansive investment in research and technology, targeted aid programs that ensured the openness of world markets to American exports, and a sprawling program of worldwide military deterrence that served to defend and expand American economic, military, and cultural predominance. Before long, however, these twin commitments to economic stimulus and global deterrence became mutually exclusive, contributing to a crisis of confidence in the liberal political order. The economic and political strain imposed by the state's attempts to meet both commitments culminated in the gradual downfall of the postwar liberal order and constituted the essential precondition for the growing salience of neo-liberal economic and political thought, embodied intellectually by Hayek and Friedman and politically by Ronald Reagan.