Perspectives on the Presidency

Abstract

With the inevitable procrustean effects, this paper attempts to summarize familiar and arcane writing on the presidency and its incumbents. I divide the literature into six categories, each of which, I suggest, represents a relatively distinctive perspective on the presidency. I portray these approaches by comparing and contrasting the beliefs and assertions of representative writers along four dimensions: first, presidential responsibilities; second, the powers of the office; third, the importance of the occupant's behavior; and fourth, prescriptions for institutional changes-which often but not invariably stem from the first three dimensions. These beliefs and assertions may be refurbished, revised, or modified in some way by the actions of Presidents, and by the horde of words which scholars, politicians, journalists, and other scribes compose and, with the encouragement and sometimes at the behest of publishers, purvey. I therefore attempt not only to distinguish the six different perspectives, but also to suggest why and how some of them have undergone change.l This paper is not an attempt to canvass the entire range of literature about the presidency or about particular Presidents. I concentrate on selected and representative works. Writings which treat particular facets of the office and its incumbent-subjects such as elections, advisory systems, presidential personality, and so on-are excluded from my purview.2 Nor do I include epiphenomena from the Saturday Review and New York Times Sunday Magazine. Moreover, by concentrating on the written word, I totally ignore television which, primarily because of its pervasiveness and its personalization of the presidency, has a far more important impact on the mass public's knowledge and myths than any of the works