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The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton
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Rating:  - The individual president in the politics of his time.
Stephen Skowronek wants to change how we judge the success of our Presidents. His major contribution to that understanding is to turn our attention away from the individual holding the office. Instead he wants us to focus on a combination of political, social and institutional factors. Perhaps the best way to introduce his theory is to start off with his observation that in general, "power has been less of a problem for presidents than authority" (p.17). In other words, it is easier to get things done then to sustain the justification of the action taken. In fact, Skowronek (hereafter called S.) feels that it in the ability of a president to "control the political definition of their actions" that will determine "the terms in which their places in history are understood" (ibid.)
Furthermore, S. sees that the power and authority have changed over the span of American history according to different arcs of development. S. sees the power of the presidency as being in the resources available to the office at any one moment and distinguishes that history of change (toward more resources and toward more independent use of those resources) as occuring in secular time. Authority refers to the way a president is expected by his contemporaries to use the resources of his office. The historical arc of change of authority structures, S. sees as taking place in political time (p.30).
The final key to understanding S.'s theory is his insistance on the inherently disruptive and creative nature of the office of the presidency. This is something that he insists on time and time again throughout the book (the first instance is on p.xii). Every president imposes themselves on the office in such a way as to change (disrupt) the current political order. How they frame doing so greatly determines the extent to which their authority to do so is challenged.
Here is where it gets interesting. Some presidents have been elected with a clear warrant for radical change in the political order. Some are elected to continue down an established path. S. imposes order on all this with a simple two by two box on p. 36. A president arrives in office either affliated with or opposed to the current regime. That regime is either vulnerable or resiliant. A president who arrives opposed to a current regime that is vulnerable has a chance to practice what S. calls the politics of reconstruction. S. examines as examples the presidencies of Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, F.D.R., and Reagan. This is the politics of greatness. If they arrive opposed to a current regime that is resiliant, the president is mired in the politics of preemption. S. sees as examples of this situation to be the presidencies of John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, (maybe) Grover Cleveland, (maybe) Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon and (somewhat) Bill Clinton. If a president arrives affiliated with a resiliant regime, he is an examplar of the politics of articulation. S discusses as examples of this James Monroe, James Polk, Teddy Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Finally, if the president is affiliated with a vulnerable regime, he will be an example of the politics of disjunction. S.'s examples are John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter (pp.17-57).
A couple of points need to be made about this scheme. The different types of politics unfold in a cycle in political time. There is a reconstructive president who usually arrives as the leader of a party realignment and with a mandate to change the corrupt and inept politics of the current regime. Utilizing this warrant for change they are able to make full use of the current powers of the president to change the regime (usually increasing both those powers and the independence of their use). One of their typical rhetorical tropes will be making the claim that they are returning our politics back to its first principles.
The presidents who follow are usually affiliates whose warrant is to continue along the new path. They do so initially as articulators but increasingly as disjunctivists (my own term and an ugly one, I acknowledge). This is due to the disruptive and individual nature of the office. In imposing their own style, ideas and appointees upon reaching office, the affiliates inevitably expose schisms in the party structure and ideology. This type of president will try to run a full-service presidency that pleases all factions of the party but the competition for the resources to do so will begin the unraveling of the coalitions created by the reconstructivists.
Even solid policy success will create problems for the affiliates who are claiming the mantle of the favorite son. Their own implementation of policy to solidify the success of their predecessor begins a debate on the history and the future of that's predecessor's reconstruction.(p.327).
Finally, in the politics of disjunction, the president will tend to resort to the reification of technique. This occurs when the president begins to lose control over the framing of the divisive issues of the day. They then attempt to use a standard of behavior as a justification for their actions. These standards of political behavior were usually introduced by the reconstructive president and have since become "politically vacuous" by the development of events. J. Q. Adams attempted to shore up his appointments by claiming that they were chosen solely on the basis of ability (the standard of patrician politics championed by Jefferson). But the politics of the moment demanded a balancing of political interests that were pressing upon him due above all to the circumstances of his election. Playing the patrician only made him seem duplicitious (see chapter 4, part 3).
Occassionally non-political events (e.g., the assisination of Lincoln) throws into office someone who is opposed to a resiliant regime and we experience the politics of preemption.
There is nothing regular or predetermined about these cycles. My qualifications about what type of president Cleveland and Wilson were shows that S. is sensitive to the difficulties with typing many of the individuals who have held the office. I think his chosen and discussed examples are probably best seen as Weberian ideal types. But I also think that S. feels that his typology can be usefully and clearly imposed on the great majority of our presidents.
Another qualifier on the theory is that the presidency is not the only governmental branch that has developed in secular time. Both Congress and the judiciary became increasingly independent from the presidency and developed increasing resources for expressing that independence.
Just as important, the last century has seen the rise of other institutions that are independent of the three branches (the Federal Reserve Bank) or outside of government all together (large unions, religious organizations, PACs, etc.) These factors along with others make it increasingly difficult to successfully pull off a reconstructive presidency.
S.s organizes his case studies in chronological order. They are in sections that are led off by study of the reconstructive presidents, followed by studies of affiliates and disjunctive presidents. They are very impressive essays that could easily stand alone. Part of what impressed me about them is the amount of archival research that S. has done. I would have expected him to rely on secondary studies and for the most part he has. But he has also read deeply in the writings of the individual presidents. For example, he makes good use of the letters of Franklin Pierce. There is an extraordinary amount of research that went into this book.
There is also a certain amount of hyperbole. I feel that S. sometimes makes his argument through his rhetoric. S. wants to emphasize the powerful nature of the office. So S. tells us that Polk's attempts to manage Jacksonian orthodoxy unleashed "schisms so destabilizing that it would take a civil war to resolve them."(p.162). I am going to suggest that those schisms were unleashed long before Polk did much of anything on the political scene. Polk's actions made things worse at most by accelerating a process already well developed.
Finally, S. feels that the political reality exposed in his theory is breaking down in various ways in the post-modern plebescitary presidency (his terms- don't look at me). I have gone on far too long to even begin to go into why he feels that is. What I hope I have done is to make you want to read the book. This is as important and insightful a scholarly work as I have read in a long time. It has several flaws but scholarly timidity is not one of them. If you are an American politics or history reader, you simply must read this book.
And then write a comment to me explaining how S.'s theory applies to Bush. I am still working on that one.
Rating:  - Good but boring
I had to read this for a class in undergrad, it was ok. I only read like 2 chapters because i was out drinking too often. His thesis is unique and kind of makes you think about the way presidents act within the overall American political landscape.
Rating: - Most important book on the presidency in decades
Skowronek has written a magesterial study of the American presidency, fundamentally reinterpreting it through a novel historical framework. His writing style is very dense, and often unclear - but the hard work necessary to understand him is well worth the effort.
I first read this as an undergraduate, then twice again in graduate school. Each reading brought out new insights I missed the previous time.
No student of the presidency can afford not to read this. Quibble with him on some details, perhaps, but overall no one can doubt its lasting importance. An instant classic.
Rating: - BRILLIANT, but a tad dense
This is definitely a difficult book, and understanding certain critical passages may require several readings. In short, this is NOT a good book for an introduction to presidential politics and leadership. For a more readable and still highly regarded account, Neustadt's seminal work is a good choice. However, none of this is to say that Skowronek's book is not brilliant--it is, and reading it carefully is a very profitable experience and will enhance anyone's understanding of the presidency, agree with Professor Skowronek or not. Through all the technical references, Skowronek proposes a paradigm for assessing presidential leadership: Reconstruction, Disjunction, Articulation, and Pre-emption, all of which are based on the nature of the government and its commitments (vulnerable or resilient) and on the president's relationship to that regime (opposed or affiliated). Reconstruction results when presidents are opposed to a vulnerable regime--here are the "great" presidents: Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan, for example. Affiliation with a vulnerable regime produces Disjunction. Articulation results from affiliation with a resilient regime. And Pre-emption is the product of opposition to a resilient regime. Of course, this merely scratches the surface of Skowronek's argument, for which he argues quite well and which he approaches from a fairly historical perspective. I highly recommend this for anyone wishing to gain a deeper, fuller understanding of presidential leadership, especially in considering how much a president's skills affect what type of leader he is and how much circumstances shape his presidency.
Rating: - Decent
I read this as part of a course (taught by the author himself) in my sophomore year of college. Skowronek is I think to be applauded for his historical approach to presidential politics, and for his style of writing: it seems more as if youre reading a story than a political science book. Time and time again, Skowronek comes back to his thesis and main themes (legitimacy and presidents ability to correctly understand and manipulate their historical moment. The book never loses focus as Skrownek discusses different presidents or as he tells stories about a particular president. And hes done his research really really well. In particular his use of presidential quotes is very very impressive. Numerous times he gives examples of Presidents who attempt to build political legitimacy using words that fit very well into Skowronek's conceptual framework ("preserving foundations", recovering old sacred truths, continuing work that has already begun). The problem with Skowronek's book is that I think, given the sort of analysis hes doing here, its not very naunced. Im sure for example, articulation presidents often distanced themselves from their predecesors in some form or another. Some may not have a problem with this: after all S. is trying to prove his point and prove it well. However I thought at times that the book could have been more nauanced. Just my thoughts....OHH BUY THE BOOK!
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