Cameron, Charles M. 1954- (Charles Metz Cameron)

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Cameron, Charles M. 1954- (Charles Metz Cameron)

PERSONAL:

Born 1954. Education: Austin College, Sherman, TX, B.A., 1976; Princeton University, M.P. A., 1981, and Ph.D., 1988,

ADDRESSES:

Office—Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 305 Robertson Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544-1013. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Political scientist, educator, and writer. Oklahoma Health Planning Commission, assistant health planner, 1976-78, director of planning, 1978-79, director, 1979-80; Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs, Office of Legislation and Policy, Health Care Financing Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, policy analyst, 1980; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, research assistant, 1981-82, professor of politics and public affairs in the Department of Politics and Woodrow School of Public and International Affairs, 2004—; State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, lecturer, 1985-87, assistant professor of political science, 1988-89; Columbia University, New York, NY, assistant professor of political science, 1989-95; associate professor of political science, 1995-2004, director of the M.P.A. Program at the School of International and Public Affairs, 2001-04.

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Merit Award, 1972-1976; Public Service Fellowship, Princeton University, 1979-1981; Hoover fellow, Hoover Institution, 1995; American Political Science Association's Fenno Prize for best book in legislative studies, and William Riker Award, for best book in political economy, both 2001, both for Veto Bargaining; also recipient of grants from the National Science Foundation and others.

WRITINGS:

Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Contributor to political science journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Charles M. Cameron is a political scientist who specializes in the analysis of political institutions, the American presidency, and legislatures. In his book Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power, Cameron uses sophisticated game theory with new data to provide both a theoretical and empirical analysis of how U.S. presidents employ vetoes and threats as they battle with an oftentimes hostile U.S. Congress. The author includes case studies of important presidential vetoes in recent U.S. judicial history and discusses how presidential vetoes came to be used more after World War II because of a divided government forcing the president to deal with a Congress controlled by the other party. Cameron concludes his book with an interpretive chapter on the veto history followed by a chapter of conclusions. Michael P. Riccards, writing in Perspectives on Political Science, noted: "Cameron has given the reader a thoughtful and insightful analysis of the modern dynamics of what was once seen as a rather staid constitutional power, an eighteenth-century negative that has become a modern tool of presidential bargaining and leadership." In his review in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Richard Fleisher wrote: "Charles Cameron, in this pathbreaking book, greatly expands our theoretical and empirical understanding of the veto." Referring to the book as "a must-read for any scholar of presidential-congressional relations," Fleisher continued: "This book will affect how others think about and conduct research on the presidential veto."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Perspectives on Political Science, spring, 2001, Michael P. Riccards, review of Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power, p. 105.

Presidential Studies Quarterly, March, 2001, Richard Fleisher, review of Veto Bargaining, p. 172.