Modern American Presidency Research Articles

Stylistic peculiarities of public speecheson the basis of modern American presidents’ inaugural texts

Stylistic peculiarities of public speecheson the basis of modern American presidents’ inaugural texts

Speaking with the People’s Voice: How Presidents Invoke Public Opinion

For well over two decades, a cross-disciplinary debate over the proper way of conceptualizing presidential rhetoric and its effects (or lack thereof) has raged sporadically, pitting humanists in communication and English departments against increasingly positivist political scientists. Rather than lurch toward resolution, however, the debate seems increasingly to be conducted across two ever-more distant tracks, as scholars in one camp misunderstand and misconstrue seminal work in the other and remain largely unaware of new developments outside their own fields. Scholars outside political science touch the bases as they reference work by Jeffrey Tulis, Samuel Kernell, and George Edwards in an often overreliant and myopic manner; political scientists often do the same with hurried references to now-classic works by David Zarefsky and Martin Medhurst but few others. Jeffrey P. Mehltretter Drury's Speaking with the People's Voice: How Presidents Invoke Public Opinion is at once an example of a continuation of this trend and a work those who seek to transcend it should read and consider seriously. Drury, a communication scholar and rhetorician, is particularly concerned with how modern American presidents have made reference to the preferences and values of the American people—what he calls “invoked public opinion”—as they have rhetorically communed with the nation.

How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency. By Saladin M. Ambar. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 200p. $55.00.

How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency. By Saladin M. Ambar. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 200p. $55.00.

How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency

How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency

How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency. By Saladin M.Ambar. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 184 pp.

How Built the Modern American Presidency. By Saladin M. Ambar. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 184 pp. only Saladin Ambar's small, elegantly written book was available years ago. I needed it when, as a Fulbrighter lecturing in Asia, I was again and again asked to explain how and why we Americans regularly advanced provincial politicians--governors with no experience in national government or international matters--as potential chief executives of the most powerful nation on earth. I did what I could. I explained the career paths to the presidency created by the federal nature of the American political and governmental systems. I talked about the intergovernmental aspects of national domestic policy. I suggested that the governance roles and administrative responsibilities of a state chief executive were far more analogous to the president's than those of a national legislator. But if I had this book, I would have been able to say with confidence: Governors are not only rightly considered for the job; they created it in its modern form. Ambar identifies five elements of the modern presidency for which he finds roots in the legacies of governor/presidents: assertive legislative the use of party dominance as a presidential resource, sophisticated media management, an embrace of the role of chief administrator of the government, and a commitment to executive-centered governance (p.5). He finds the Tilden-Hayes presidential election in 1876 to be a watershed moment, the first time that the two major parties' presidential nominees were both sitting governors. Tilden and Hayes helped spawn a new thinking in executive leadership, he writes, positioning the American governorship as a popular and characteristically 'honest' executive institution for democratic reform (p. 32). Grover Cleveland (also a former mayor, of Buffalo) was storied for his use of the veto and his willingness to exercise national power on his own authority; he provided the governor/ president bridge to the Progressive Era. Progressive theory joined populism (direct democracy) and the emerging corporate model (governor/president as chief executive) to recast the elected executive as tribune of the people. This was, of course, a stark alternative to then prevalent legislative- and party-centered government, defended as constitutionally prescribed. At the state level, to effect their vision, progressive reformers changed constitutions wholesale, or sought to (a matter to which Professor Ambar gives only passing attention). At the national level, with constitutional amendment or revision much harder, change was achieved through reinterpretation, driven by the actions of governor/presidents. During his campaign for governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson, the political-scientist governor/president, embraced rather than resisted the idea that his expansive, popular-based view of executive office was unconstitutional. If you elect me I will be an unconstitutional governor in that respect, he said. …

How governors built the modern American presidency

How governors built the modern American presidency

Regulatory Review by the Executive Office of the President: An Overview and Policy Analysis of Current Issues

Regulatory Review by the Executive Office of the President: An Overview and Policy Analysis of Current Issues

International Identity in Theory and Practice: The Case of the Modern American Presidency

Scholars have devoted considerable attention to the concept of national identity. In a globalizing world, however, identity is increasingly shaped not only by one's own nation but also by foreign nations. With this in mind, this study theorizes international identity as a communicative process. We propose four features of international identity—that it is distinct, relational, contextual, and stratified—and examine these features in one crucial context: the modern American presidency. Our content analysis of every mention of a foreign entity in 74 years worth of presidential discourse—2480 mentions in all—supports our conception of international identity and begins to identify the parameters of this construct in American political communication.

War and the American Presidency (review)

Reviewed by: The Modern American Presidency Robert J. Spitzer The Modern American Presidency. By Lewis L. Gould. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003; pp xv + 301. $29.95. Arguably the greatest and most protracted intellectual struggle in the study of the American presidency arises from two opposing views of the institution. One view explains the institution largely in terms of the way it has been shaped by the individuals occupying the office. It emphasizes the impact of leadership (surely still the largest and most prolific school of presidency analysis), personality, and unique historical events, among other factors, to explain the institution. In this view, the presidency is composed of the 43 distinct events or cases defined by the individuals who have occupied the Oval Office, even when analysts seek common traits found across administrations. The alternate view is the institutionalist perspective. While this term encompasses an eclectic array of methodologies, they share in common some sense that fundamental institutional traits generally transcend the idiosyncrasies of individual presidents; that the presidential experience is more common than different; that key factors explain fundamental behaviors and outcomes. Lewis L. Gould's new book would seem at first blush to fall in the first category, which is where most presidential historians are to be found. Even though Gould, an emeritus history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, presents a chapter organization that seems to offer little more than a familiar chronological recitation of "modern presidents" from McKinley to Clinton, as laid out in the book's ten chapters (most chapters treat presidents in pairs, except for solo treatments of Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and Clinton), in fact the book offers a great deal more. His analytical focus is decidedly institutional. There is a modern presidency, of course, as distinct from the premodern institution, although traits of the latter are inextricably intertwined with the former. But each president played an identifiable role in advancing the modern institution. Singularly instructive is Gould's first case, William McKinley. Generally considered the last of the premoderns, Gould demonstrates the reverse. In part through the pivotal role of the little-known presidential secretary George B. Cortelyou—think of an Edwardian Karl Rove—McKinley was not, in fact, quite the back porch campaigner and president too often depicted. Yes, McKinley did follow the custom and refrain from personal political campaigning in 1896 and 1900. But just prior to the 1898 midterm elections, he "campaigned" vigorously around the country to defend his post-Spanish-American War plan to retain lands abroad. Thumping vigorously on policy near election time had the desired effect: it "minimized Republican losses in the 1898 elections and built support for McKinley's decision to acquire the Philippine Islands" (8). Largely though Cortelyou, McKinley cultivated positive press coverage, provided White House reporters with indoor quarters (predating Theodore Roosevelt's similar and more [End Page 230] widely touted move), established a White House "War Room" (its contemporary name) to coordinate the Spanish-American War, proliferated telephone and telegraph services in the White House, and increased the staff, among other institutional innovations. In short, he materially expanded and diversified the presidential institution and mission in ways identified with later presidents. It is this story of institutional development across the last 18 presidents that is the core of Gould's narrative. Further, Gould is not out to deify the institution, to somehow resurrect "failed" presidents or to vilify "great" ones. He makes clear from the outset that "[t]o treat the modern presidency as a success story is to falsify the historical record" (xiv). Instead, this book is a highly readable, engagingly written, and nearly engrossing tale of the institutionalization of the twentieth-century presidency, although that analytic approach flags in the treatment of more recent presidents. Two conclusions that emerge from this account are that an institutional analysis underscores evolutionary continuity and that a square reading of that evolution deflates presidential myths and stereotypes, especially those that arise from the usual breezy and dreadful presidential rankings. Thus, Woodrow Wilson's presidency suffered from a degree of institutional breakdown, even before his final, debilitating stroke, that questions the usual rosy assessments. Each of the three presidencies of the 1920s...

The Adverse Consequences of the Politics of Agency Design for Presidential Management in the United States: The Relative Durability of Insulated Agencies

The US Congress has often sought to limit presidential influence over certain public policies by designing agencies that are insulated from presidential control. Whether or not insulated agencies persist over time has important consequences for presidential management. If those agencies that persist over time are also those that are the most immune from presidential direction, this has potentially fatal consequences for the president's ability to manage the executive branch. Modern presidents will preside over a less and less manageable bureaucracy over time. This article explains why agencies insulated from presidential control are more durable than other agencies and shows that they have a significantly higher expected duration than other agencies. The conclusion is that modern American presidents preside over a bureaucracy that is increasingly insulated from their control.

The Modern American Presidency

The Modern American Presidency

Lewis L. Gould. <italic>The Modern American Presidency</italic>. Foreword by Richard Norton Smith. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. Pp. xv, 301. $29.95

Lewis L. Gould. The Modern American Presidency. Foreword by Richard Norton Smith. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. Pp. xv, 301. $29.95 Get access Gould Lewis L.. The Modern American Presidency. Foreword by Smith Richard Norton. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. Pp. xv, 301. $29.95. Michael Nelson Michael Nelson Rhodes College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 109, Issue 1, February 2004, Page 207, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/109.1.207 Published: 01 February 2004

Reviews of Books:The Modern American Presidency Lewis L. Gould

Reviews of Books:The Modern American Presidency Lewis L. Gould

The Most Powerful Men in The World - Lewis L. Gould, The Modern American Presidency. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003, Pp. XV, 301. $29.95.)

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The modern American presidency

When the first edition of this book appeared in 2003, it was chosen as a Main Selection of both the Book-of-the-Month Club and History Book Club and quickly became the standard work on the modern American presidency - from William McKinley through William Jefferson Clinton. In that original edition, Lewis L. Gould argued that, while the president may be the most powerful man in the world, most presidents have fallen well short of the daunting challenges that confronted them while in office. During George W. Bush's two administrations, as Gould discusses in a substantial new chapter, those challenges grew in scope and ferocity, encompassing two intractable wars, natural disaster on an inconceivable scale, and a near-meltdown of the national and global economies. Unfortunately, Gould argues, President Bush was woefully unprepared for those challenges, failed spectacularly as a leader, and ultimately lost the public's trust. His failures further reinforce and underscore Gould's previous conclusions. This new edition, like the first, offers a lively interpretive synthesis filled with intriguing insights into the presidency's evolution during America's rise to global prominence. Gould traces the decline of the party system, the increasing importance of the media and its role in creating the president-as-celebrity, and the growth of the White House staff and executive bureaucracy. He also shows us a succession of chief executives who increasingly have known less and less about the business of governing the country, observing that most would have had a better historical reputation if they had contented themselves with a single term. Gould's sharply critical new chapter on George W. Bush's presidency notes how he and his associates extended the troubling trends of continuous campaigning, media manipulation, celebrity politics, and inattention to governance so characteristic of the modern presidential office. Gould also amplifies his commentary on the Clinton presidency and lays out the treacherous terrain that President Obama must now traverse. This book remains a must read for everyone who cares about the future of our nation and the presidents who lead it.

A Falling Out: The Relationship Between Oliver Wendell Holmes and Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt is often credited with founding and shaping the modern American presidency. With his appointment of Oliver Wendell Holmes to the Supreme Court of the United States, Roosevelt also set in motion a force that would transform the judiciary. However, it did not go as Roosevelt had planned. Holmes' refusal to conform to Roosevelt's desires in Northern Securities Co. v. United States demonstrated that Holmes was his own man and not Roosevelt's instrument. The decision brought an abrupt halt to what had been becoming a close friendship between the two men. Over the years the rift deepened. The bitterness that grew between them reflected more than a difference of opinion over law and economic principles; it reflected the type of disillusionment that comes only when a friend fails to live up to expectations.

A Falling Out: The Relationship Between Oliver Wendell Holmes and Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt is often credited with founding and shaping the modern American presidency.1 With his appointment of Oliver Wendell Holmes to the Supreme Court of the United States, Roosevelt also set in motion a force that would transform the judiciary. However, it did not go as Roosevelt had planned. Holmes’ refusal to conform to Roosevelt’s desires in Northern Securities Co. v. United States2 demonstrated that Holmes was his own man and not Roosevelt’s instrument. The decision brought an abrupt halt to what had been becoming a close friendship between the two men. Over the years the rift deepened. The bitterness that grew between them reflected more than a difference of opinion over law and economic principles; it reflected the type of disillusionment that comes only when a friend fails to live up to expectations.

The President's Legislative Influence from Public Appeals

Despite scholars' long-standing appreciation of modern American presidents' plebiscitary powers, no study offers evidence that public appeals systematically facilitate influence, and some research indicates they can actually decrease presidential bargaining power. Our analysis resolves this disparity, developing a theoretical perspective of plebiscitary appeals and testing it on data from the nationally televised addresses of Presidents Eisenhower through Clinton. perspective suggests that appeals should generate influence, but that this influence depends on presidents strategically choosing issues to promote to the public. In particular, a president will promote issues on which his position is popular, but for which Congress would not otherwise enact his preferred policy. To test this perspective, analyze a simultaneous-equations model of the causes and policy consequences of presidential appeals over budgetary policy. results support the hypotheses, establishing the effectiveness of public strategies and conditions to which this effectiveness is limited. n July 27, 1981, less than forty-eight hours before the House was scheduled to vote on President Reagan's proposed income tax reduction of over 25 percent, the president promoted his proposal in a nationally televised address. Speaker of the House Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill, Jr. surmised that prior to the address, we [the Democrats] had this won.' Yet following Reagan's speech, a number of Democrats switched positions, opting to vote with the president. Why did these members abandon their party? As described by an aide to Representative Beverly Byron, one of the Democrats that switched positions, Byron's office was inundated with calls in support of Reagan's proposal the morning after his speech. Offices across the Hill gave similar reports.2 In the end, the tax cut won by a vote of 238 to 195. Fifteen years later, with the partisanship of the presidency and House reversed (the Senate was again Republican), President Clinton promoted his budget proposals to the public following a breakdown in negotiations with Congress. Ultimately, these efforts helped enable Clinton to achieve his policy goals. As recounted by a Chief Clerk of the House Appropriations Committee, The Republicans pushed their agenda too far, and Clinton was able to capitalize on the situation with the public ... the next

The Qualities of Effective Presidents: An Overview from FDR to Bill Clinton

The highly personalized nature of the modern American presidency makes the strengths and weaknesses of the White House incumbent of the utmost importance. This article summarizes the conclusions of an interpretative study of the eleven American presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. It discusses the qualities that have served well and poorly in the Oval Office under six headings: communication to the public, organizational capacity, political skill, policy vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence.

The presidential power of unilateral action

In this article we highlight a formal basis for presidential power that has gone largely unappreciated to this point, but has become so pivotal to presidential leadership and so central to an understanding of presidential power that it virtually defines what is distinctively modern about the modern presidency. This is the president’s formal capacity to act unilaterally and thus to make law on his own. Our central purpose is to set out a theory of this aspect of presidential power. We argue that the president’s powers of unilateral action are a force in American politics precisely because they are not specified in the Constitution. They derive their strength and resilience from the ambiguity of the contract. We also argue that presidents have incentives to push this ambiguity relentlessly to expand their own powers—and that, for reasons rooted in the nature of their institutions, neither Congress nor the courts are likely to stop them. We are currently in the midst of a research project to collect comprehensive data for testing this theory—data on what presidents have done, as well as on how Congress and the courts have responded. Here we provide a brief history of unilateral action, with special attention to the themes of our theoretical argument. We also make use of some early data to emerge from our project. For now it appears that the theory is well supported by the available evidence. This is a work in progress, however, and more is clearly needed before definitive conclusions can be justified. A few observations about politics are so widely accepted that virtually all political scientists have committed them to memory. One of these is Richard Neustadt’s (1960) famous dictum, “Presidential power is the power to persuade,” which expresses, in shorthand form, his view that the powers of the modern American presidency are rooted in the personal qualities of the individual occupying the office—in his skills, his temperament, and his experience. This notion of the personal presidency dominated the field for decades, but its influence is on the decline. The main reason is that it seems increasingly out of sync with the facts. The personal presidency became a popular theoretical notion just as the American presidency was experiencing tremendous growth c