Studying the Presidency
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The American president is the most scrutinized individual in the world.
Why?
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The American presidency is not necessarily the most studied institution
in the world. Why?
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Textbook Images of the Presidency
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Heroic/Savior Presidency-Images devolving from the Roosevelt
through Kennedy presidencies. The president is viewed in glowing
terms as a symbolic and virtual leader. Presidential actions are seen
placing the president in the same aura as a monarch. An office of
reverence and national fervor. Various scholars have depicted the
presidency as building organizations, reputations, and the office to work
good for the nation (e.g., Clinton Rossiter, Richard Neustadt, James
MacGregor Burns).
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Imperial Presidency/Satan-Images devolving from the Johnson,
Nixon, and late Reagan presidencies. Books appearing in the early 70s
cast the president in the image of a monarch existing in an office that
does not enoble its occupants, but isolates them from democratic
influences. They lack the stimuli necessary to govern aptly.
Additionally, the power of the presidency has grown too large.
Presidents have freed themselves of the checks on behavior. Following
Watergate there was a wholesale decline in American’s belief in the
viability and honesty of their governmental institutions. In a past era
citizens and reporters would not have reviled a president in the way they
did the Johnson and Nixon presidencies.
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Post-Imperial/Samson-Images devolving from the relatively weak
Ford and Carter presidencies. The image here is of an emasculated
office unable to live up to expectations. Since Nixon, a period of 38
years we have had 7 presidents, for an average of about 5 years per
president. The argument is that presidents are given an impossible task
of fulfilling the expectations placed on the office and its occupant. It is
therefore bound to fail.
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These simplistic images are not very scientific and are typical of what
you might find in American Government textbooks. We shall take a
more objective and informed approach in this class.
Doing Research on the
Presidency
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All good scientific research begins with a research question.
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What is a research question? A research question is a statement of a research
problem in question form. It can either relate two research concepts, or be
more general by asking a question about a single research concept.
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What is a research problem? A research problem always states what we want
to know about one or more research concepts.
Examples of research concepts associated with the presidency:
 Presidential approval
 Presidential power
 Presidential success
 Presidential liberalism/conservatism
 Presidential saber rattling
 Presidential optimism
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Commonly we may want to relate a research concept associated with the
presidency with research concepts about other actors or phenomena
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Example:
 How does presidential approval affect presidential success in Congress?
 How does presidential liberalism affect Supreme Court liberalism?
 How does economic performance affect presidential approval?
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Or, we may take a more general approach to a research question.
 What determines presidential approval?
 What determines presidential saber rattling?
 What determines presidential success in Congress?
 What determines presidential liberalism?
 What determines the president’s stances toward other nations?
Methodologies for Evaluating
Research Questions
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Commonly, political scientists formulate hypotheses that derive from research
questions.
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Examples:
 H1: How do Gallup approval ratings of the president affect the
proportion of presidential legislation that is passed by Congress?
 H2: How does divided government affect the proportion of presidential
proposals that are passed by Congress?
 How does divided government affect the president’s propensity to wage
war or engage in foreign conflict?
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Once hypotheses are formulated, scholars can use a variety of methods to
evaluate the hypotheses and research questions.
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Methodologically, studying the presidency is difficult from the
standpoint of doing empirical research. Presidential power, success,
leadership, skills, personality, these are all important concepts in
studying the presidency. But how do we measure these?
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There is also the small N problem.
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Common Methodologies
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Descriptive studies-These studies simply describe the operation of the
presidency under particular presidents. Most often these types of
studies are done by historians. This type of research is often done in
Presidential Libraries, or using interviews with administration officials.
This type of research is important for developing a substantive indepth understanding of the institution. Often, however, this type of
work is not guided by scientific research questions, but by a penchant
for obtaining facts about the presidency and those who occupy the
institution.
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Case studies- The most popular method is the case study. People simply
analyze the actions and modes of operation of a president concerning
particular events or decisions and draw theoretically relevant
conclusions.
Example: Graham Allison's book Essence of Decision. This is an analysis
of the operation of the presidency during the Cuban missile crisis. It
concerns how the presidency operated during a time of crisis, who the
influential actors were in affecting the president's decisions, what
motivated each of the actors who were representatives of bureaucracies,
and was also normative in prescribing neutral advice. The problem with
the case study approach is that different observers can look at the same
case and draw different conclusions.
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Quantitative analysis- There are various dimensions of the presidency
that lend themselves to quantification. For example, there are studies of
who/what affects the president, and how does the president affect
others? There are also many studies of presidential campaigns and
elections. What determines who wins? What determines how much of
the vote a candidate gets? What determines voter attitudes about the
candidates? How does money affect who wins a presidential election?
What determines presidential attention to issues? How does the
president affect others’ attention to issues?
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Substantively, there are at least 4 commonly used approaches to studying
the presidency: legal, institutional, power, and psychological.
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Legal- Here the researcher evaluates the legal and constitutional
foundations of presidential power, either formal or informal. The
emphasis is typically on the historical evolution of the office. Legal
researchers analyze the constitution, laws, treaties, legal precedents, and
developing customs to understand the sources, scope, and use of the
president’s formal and informal powers. Often, the focus is on the
“boundaries” of presidential power, which have changed consistently
over time.
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Examples of this type research:
War Powers resolution of 1973, which was intended to limit the
president’s independent authority to conduct war. Look at the work by
Lewis Fisher. Do google scholar search for more.
Bush’s internment of “prisoners of war” at Guantanamo with no
opportunity for legal representation, no rights, and no likelihood of
release. Do google scholar search.
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The legal approach is useful in explaining what the president does not
do (his authority is bounded by law and custom), but cannot explain
what he does do. Also, there is little ability of this approach to explain
why the president does what he does within these boundaries.
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Psychological approach- Here the focus is on the psychological
makeup of the president and its relationship to presidential
performance.
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This research has produced 1) Psychobiographies of various
presidents, and 2) attempts to categorize presidents on the basis
of psychological profiles. These are used to attempt explanation
of what presidents do and why they do them. The way they
organize their staff, conduct decisions, even decision outcomes.
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For example, James Barber has developed a typology that forces
us to think about presidents in terms of the energy they bring to
the office, as well as the way they view the world. ActivePositive, Active Negative, Passive Positive, Passive Negative.
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Other scholars, Fred Greenstein, Alexander George, Michael
Nelson
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These studies often focus on the pathological aspects of the presidency.
Why did Johnson involve us in Vietnam?
Why did Nixon shoot himself in the foot with a Watergate?
Why did Eisenhower have such a problem governing in the first 6 years?
Why did George Bush, Sr. have such trouble “connecting” with the
average citizen on domestic policy?
Why did Clinton behave in such an illicit fashion with Monica Lewinsky
when he had much going for him?“
Why did George W. Bush go to war with Iraq?
Why does Barack Obama exhibit caution on going to war?
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These studies often concentrate on personality to the exclusion of other
factors. Reductionism.
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They force us to understand that the behavior of individuals who occupy
an institution is critically determined by personality and personal
attributes. These studies lend a micro-perspective to the study of the
presidency.
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Institutional and Neo-Institutional - Here the researcher
focuses on the presidency as an institution in which the
president plays certain roles and fulfills responsibilities and is
involved in numerous structures and processes. The structure,
processes, and functions of the presidency as an institution are
a focus of attention. The presidency as an institution and part
of an adaptive organization are important concepts.
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Terry Moe, B. Dan Wood, William Howell, David Lewis
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Examples of research questions:
How is the presidency organized? How has this changed
through time? Why has it changed? How does this affect
behavior for the president and members of the administration?
How does the presidency interact with other institutions, such
as the Congress, Courts, bureaucracy, media? Does
presidential rhetoric (the public presidency) affect other
actors? Can the president use the "bully pulpit" effectively? Is
the president responsive to these other actors?
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Using this approach, scholars move beyond analyzing the legal
boundaries of presidential authority to evaluating what presidents
actually do in a systematic fashion. These studies can be case studies or
quantitative analysis.
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This approach is useful in helping to explain what presidents do, but is
limited in that they may downplay the significance of difficult to measure
concepts such as political skills, ideology, power, or personality in their
emphasis on organizations and processes.
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Power perspectives- Here the researcher focuses on the people within
institutions, the manner and degree to which they hold and exercise
power. Pluralism, elitism. These researchers have an expansive view
of presidential politics leading them to look beyond the institution in
explaining what presidents do. Interest groups, public support,
coalitions of actors are necessary requisites for explaining what
presidents do and why.
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Examples of research questions:
How does presidential approval (power) affect presidential success in
Congress?
How does press coverage of the White House affect the activities of
the White House?
How do interest groups and political contributions affect presidential
behavior.
The power approach attempts to answer the question, "Who
governs?" Who has power in the political system. The power
approach often has a top-down orientation.
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Why do presidents engage in “saber rattling toward other nations?
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The textbook view is that the president is "all powerful" when nothing
could be further from the truth. The power approach typically
demonstrates this.
Resources
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http://scholar.google.com
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http://library.tamu.edu search for books, subjects, etc.
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http://library.tamu.edu search databases for jstor. If you are behind the
firewall just go to http://jstor.org
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http://library.tamu.edu search databases for ingenta. If you are behind the
firewall just go to http://ingentaconnect.com
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http://library.tamu.edu search databases for ebsco. If you are behind the
firewall just go to http://search.ebscohost.com
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If off campus and not behind the firewall, then you will need to install VPN
on your machine, available at http://hdc.tamu.edu/Connecting/VPN/