Can Presidents Lead?

Abstract

Recent presidents have generally been considered disappointing or failures by both public and scholarly audiences. Why is this the case? Why have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans been unable to make the presidency function effectively? I argue that there are a variety of factors which work against presidential leadership in non-crisis, non foreign policy arenas, creating an "anti-leadership" bias. Here I focus on two main factors: the intent of the inventors of the presidency, and the structural design of government created by the Framers of the Constitution.