Time and the life cycle of presidential approval: a research note

Abstract

This paper theorizes that the best way to empirically understand the president as a product is to look at the office and its occupant as a consumer product, in terms of the response of the consumers, citizens, to the product as measured by popularity. A substantial amount of literature has investigated the link between time, economics, and dramatic events to understand how those variables affect presidential approval ratings. However, there are conflicting views as to whether or not time, independently of other variables, has an effect on presidential approval. This study reconstructs the nature of that relationship between time and presidential approval ratings, testing for the relationship between presidential approval and time as a two-curve relationship. This relationship is analogous to the product life-cycle curve for commercial products. Substantial support is found for this hypothesized two-curve relationship. The results substantiate that the relationship between the citizenry and the modern president is the same as their relationship to consumer products. Future research must include time as the primary variable in our understanding of the modern market presidency. This additional study would not only substantiate the findings that presidential approval ratings follow a product life-cycle three-stage two-curve relationship, but would help develop a more concrete definition of the modern presidency.