Citizen Oversight of Presidential Performance

Abstract

The of citizens as agents of presidential accountability is both important and understudied. The people are arbiters of access to and retention of presidential power. They are de facto anchor of complex, multiagent presidential accountability system whose members (e.g., Congress, courts, and news media, among others) are also dependent on public support (Buchanan 2013, 33-59). Moreover, citizen judgments underlie presidential job approval, most-watched statistic in American politics and a proxy for chief executive's power to persuade lawmakers, capacity to win re-election and ability to help or hurt in mid-term elections (Harwood 2010, A15). It therefore matters how, and how well, citizens oversee presidents. Although there has been significant ongoing effort to assess general civic competence of voters (e.g., Borgida, Federico, and Sullivan 2009; Campbell et al. 1960; Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996) and some research attention to citizen conceptions of presidential prototypes (Kinder et al. 1980) and to presidential greatness (e.g., Simonton 2008), specific work on how Americans judge presidential is comparatively rare. The largest group of studies relies primarily on correlations between presidential events and public support scores to explain why presidential approval rises and falls (e.g., Kernell 1978; Mueller 1970, 1973; Ostrom and Simon 1985; Stimson 1976). Ostrom and Simon (1985, 354), for example, find that presidential approval depends upon the quality of social, economic and international outcomes experienced by public. One of most important of these studies is Brody (1991). Building on earlier work, Brody found that news reports of presidential policy successes and failures were correlated with higher and lower levels, respectively, of Gallup Poll-tested public approval of presidential performance. Brody (1991, 174) also found that the clearer results and more news devoted to particular topic less likely it is that public reactions will differ along lines of partisanship. These findings convinced him that citizen oversight of presidential was adequate. By basing rewards and punishments on performance and by resisting partisan blandishments (t)he American people--despite minimal attention to politics, despite lack of information, and because of peculiar institutions of American politics--appear to have stumbled on (Brody 1991, 175). Brody's work is foundation on which present study builds. Below I update and extend Brody by presenting cross-time interview evidence to show that, while results still matter and citizen partisanship is on rise, aggregate complexity of citizen assessments of presidential is greater than Brody or his predecessors could discern from inferential evidence alone. Assessing Citizen Competence: A Framework To use interviews to gauge citizen competence, strategy is required. That used here is theoretically grounded framework for classifying and interpreting citizen judgments of presidential expressed in interviews. The framework is nine-cell classification scheme, Values and Targets (VT) matrix, depicted in Table 1. It is derived from historical and political science research literature cited below. The matrix is intended as comprehensive template for organizing, classifying, and interpreting substance of citizens' evaluative commentary. Do selected values and targets used to create nine categories for classifying how Americans judge presidents create most meaningful categories? Substantively answer is yes. Effectiveness at problem solving has historically been core test of presidential competence. And as shown below, presidential traits and acts seen as helping or hurting presidential efforts to get results have (at infrequent but key moments) been subject to popular approval not just on effectiveness grounds but also on morality and prudence grounds. …