About

Terry Moe is the William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has written extensively on the presidency and public bureaucracy, as well as American politics and political institutions more generally. His research focuses on the politics of American education, the structure and power of political institutions, and the dynamics of public policy and reform. Moe has authored several influential books, including Relic (2016), Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy (2020), and Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency (2025). His work also covers topics such as the politics of institutional reform, teachers unions, and education systems worldwide. Moe holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota (1976) and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego (1971).

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Political economy
• Law
• Computer Science
• Development economics
• Law and economics
• Public administration
• Economics

Selected publications

• Trajectory of Power

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2025-06-02 · 2 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  A penetrating account of how, over many decades, conservative backlash to the administrative state led to the rise of a strongman presidency that threatens American democracy In Trajectory of Power , leading political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe provide a sweeping account of the historical rise of presidential power, arguing that it has now grown to the point where, in the wrong hands, it threatens to subvert American democracy and replace it with a de facto system of strongman rule, whether led by Donald Trump or someone else. The book shows that, for much of the twentieth century, Republican and Democratic presidents pursued power in very similar ways and almost always within democratic bounds. But Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan, in a transformation that has grown increasingly extreme over time, have gone beyond the “normal” incentives that have traditionally shaped presidential behavior—and still shape the behavior of Democratic presidents—to pursue a presidency of such expansive unilateral power, and with such disregard for basic democratic requirements, that it puts democracy at serious risk. Trajectory of Power traces this divergence in approach to the backlash of conservatives against the administrative state, and to their epiphany that a war on big government could only be waged through a presidency of extraordinary power. With this vision in mind, Reagan’s Justice Department pioneered the Unitary Executive Theory, which justified vast expansions of unilateral presidential power and was further radicalized over the decades as the Republican Party became more ideologically extreme, more populist, more anti-system, and ultimately more supportive of a strongman presidency. Timely, urgent, and original, Trajectory of Power reveals how the presidency has been profoundly transformed during the modern era—and why it now puts our democracy in imminent danger.

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• Trajectory of Power

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2025-08-19 · 4 citations

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• Presidents, Congress, and the Politics of Unilateral Action

  2024-05-23

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract The rules, structures, practices, and political dynamics of Congress inform more than just how legislators go about their work. These factors also weigh upon presidents when they decide whether to advance a policy agenda through legislative or administrative channels. Impediments to lawmaking, a rich body of scholarship demonstrates, routinely encourage presidents to bypass Congress and instead issue executive orders, proclamations, memoranda, and other unilateral directives. This chapter inventories the many unilateral actions taken by Donald Trump in the face of congressional disinterest, dysfunction, and even opposition. Coupled with a brief case study of Barack Obama’s exercise of unilateral powers in education policy, this history has important implications for our understandings of presidential-congressional dynamics, the shifting locus of policy decision-making in the federal government, and the changing balance of power between the first two branches of government.

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• The strongman presidency and the two logics of presidential power

  Presidential Studies Quarterly · 2023 · 22 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Abstract The strongman presidency presents an acute threat to democracy. Two logics underpin its emergence, both of which implicate the administrative state. Under the first, presidents have sought to deploy the vast resources of the administrative state in pursuit of power and legacy. This logic is symmetric, shaping the behavior of Republican and Democratic presidents alike. The second logic, however, sets them apart. Because most of the administrative state is the embodiment of progressive values, Democratic presidents have approached presidential power in ways that are largely compatible with its well‐being, whereas Republican presidents have laid claim to increasingly extreme powers in order to retrench and sabotage it. Layered on the first, this asymmetric logic is the main driver of the strongman presidency—and, ultimately, a major threat to American democracy.

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• Response to Daniel W. Drezner’s Review of <i>Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy</i>

  Perspectives on Politics · 2021-05-21

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• The Toddler in Chief: What Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency. By Daniel W. Drezner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. 272p. $15.00 paper.

  Perspectives on Politics · 2021-05-21

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• America’s Crisis of Democracy

  Political Science Quarterly · 2021 · 24 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Political economy
  PublisherDOI

• Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy

  2020 · 113 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Political economy

  Has American democracy's long, ambitious run come to an end? Possibly yes. As William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe argue in this trenchant new analysis of modern politics, the United States faces a historic crisis that threatens our system of self-government--and if democracy is to be saved, the causes of the crisis must be understood and defused. The most visible cause is Donald Trump, who has used his presidency to attack the nation's institutions and violate its democratic norms. Yet Trump is but a symptom of causes that run much deeper: social forces like globalization, automation, and immigration that for decades have generated economic harms and cultural anxieties that our government has been wholly ineffective at addressing. Millions of Americans have grown angry and disaffected, and populist appeals have found a receptive audience. These are the drivers of Trump's dangerous presidency. And after he leaves office, they will still be there for other populists to weaponize. What can be done to safeguard American democracy? The disruptive forces of modernity cannot be stopped. The solution lies, instead, in having a government that can deal with them--which calls for aggressive new policies, but also for institutional reforms that enhance its capacity for effective action. The path to progress is filled with political obstacles, including an increasingly populist, anti-government Republican Party. It is hard to be optimistic. But if the challenge is to be met, we need reforms of the presidency itself--reforms that harness the promise of presidential power for effective government, but firmly protect against the fear that it may be put to anti-democratic ends

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• Anzia_Moe_PensionBoards_ReplicationCode_7_19_18.do

  Harvard Dataverse · 2019-01-01

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• Index

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2019-02-07

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Frequent coauthors

• John E. Chubb

  20 shared

• Sarah F. Anzia

  University of California, Berkeley

  19 shared

• Susanne Wiborg

  11 shared

• William G. Howell

  11 shared

• Tara Béteille

  World Bank

  7 shared

• Jonathan Bendor

  5 shared

• Rita Nikolai

  5 shared

• Robert W. Aspinall

  5 shared

Labs

• Vice Provost for Student AffairsPI

Education

• Ph.D., Political Science

  Harvard University

  1978

• B.A., Political Science

  Stanford University

  1973