The Strategic President: Persuasion and Opportunity in Presidential Leadership PDF
Preview The Strategic President: Persuasion and Opportunity in Presidential Leadership
T This page intentionally left blank Persuasion and Opportunity in Presidential Leadership GEORGE C. EDWARDS III · Copyright©2009byPrincetonUniversityPress PublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress,41WilliamStreet,Princeton,NewJersey08540 IntheUnitedKingdom:PrincetonUniversityPress,6OxfordStreet,Woodstock, OxfordshireOX201TW ALLRIGHTSRESERVED LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Edwards,GeorgeC. Thestrategicpresident:persuasionandopportunityin presidentialleadership/GeorgeC.EdwardsIII. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN978-0-691-13947-0(cloth:alk.paper) 1.Presidents—UnitedStates.2.Politicalleadership—UnitedStates. 3.Communicationinpolitics—UnitedStates.I.Title. JK516.E324 2009 352.23′60973—dc22 2008039432 BritishLibraryCataloging-in-PublicationDataisavailable ThisbookhasbeencomposedinUtopia Printedonacid-freepaper.∞ press.princeton.edu PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 to Carmella whose power to persuade is not in doubt This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix CHAPTER 1 Power as Persuasion 1 CHAPTER 2 Leading the Public: Best Test Cases 19 CHAPTER 3 Leading the Public: Exploiting Existing Opinion 61 CHAPTER 4 Leading Congress: Best Test Cases 110 CHAPTER 5 Leading Congress: Less Favorable Contexts 152 CHAPTER 6 Reassessing Leadership 188 Notes 201 Index 249 This page intentionally left blank Preface IN THEFALL of2005, I begana memorableyear as OlinProfessorofAmericanGovernmentatOxford.Newsenior faculty at Oxford deliver an Inaugural Lecture to an intelligent and worldly university-wide audience. Selecting a topic for suchalectureisnotaneasytask.Formorethanthreedecades, Ihadstudiedpresidentialleadership,tryingtounderstandwhy others,especiallythoseinCongressandthepublic,respondto thechiefexecutiveastheydo.Moreoftenthannot,Ifoundthat the White House was frustrated in its attempts to obtain the supportofothers.Itoccurredtomethatitwastimetoreexam- inesomeofourbasicpremisesaboutthenatureofpresidential leadership. The great presidential scholar, and my dear friend, Richard Neustadt, revolutionized the study of the presidency with the publication of Presidential Power in 1960. The essence of his argument was that “presidential power is the power to per- suade.” For half a century, scholars and students—and many presidents—have viewed the presidency through the lens of Neustadt’s core contention. Inthisbook,Itakeafreshlookatthenatureofpoliticallead- ership,withaparticularfocusontheAmericanpresidency.We typically view leadership as a key, often the key, to explaining major changes in public policy. If we are to understand such changes,wemustfirstunderstandthenatureofleadership.The probabilityofanalyticalerrorandevenpoliticaldisasterishigh ifscholars,thepublic,andespeciallypresidentsmisunderstand the true potential of leadership.
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