By Order of the President

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This article examines the use of executive orders as instruments of presidential direct administration. In order to establish groundwork for a critical analysis of the difficulties associated with the use of executive orders, the piece begins with a description of the characteristics and development of this instrument of governance. It then argues that executive orders present a variety of conflicts with existing principles of administrative law. It contends that these problems counsel restraint in the use of executive orders and improvement in the procedures by which those orders that are necessary are issued and implemented.