Presidential Studies Quarterly articles from September 1999

Presidential Studies Quarterly archives from September 1999

Skill in Context: A Comparison of Politicians.
September 1, 1999... Politics and government are presented to citizens through stories about the actions of individual political leaders because individuals and their actions provide good stories. It is a short jump to the proposition that political science is...

Jim Crow's Coming Out: Race Relations and American Foreign Policy in the Truman Years.
September 1, 1999... The struggles for racial equality in the United States and in the world system that characterized the entire cold war era accelerated sharply during the presidency of Harry S. Truman. The domestic civil rights movement and what might be called...

Fire, Flood, and Red Fever: Motivating Metaphors of Global Emergency in the Truman Doctrine Speech.
September 1, 1999... Cold war exaggerations of American vulnerability derive rhetorically from the Truman Doctrine speech perhaps more than any other single presidential source. As the initial declaration of hostile relations with the Soviet Union after World War...

Lyndon Johnson, Vietnam, and Public Opinion: Rethinking Realist Theory of Leadership.
September 1, 1999... Realist accounts of international relations are based on a theory of strong leadership of domestic public opinion. Realists and neorealists argue that domestic elite actors' participation in foreign policy making is the critical intervening...

The Limits of Rational Choice: Bush and Clinton Budget Summitry.
September 1, 1999... Rational choice models change uncertainly into risk, convert risk from a constraint that paralyzes action to a set of opportunities that encourages decision, measure decisions taken against presumably more "rational" options, and provide a...

White House Staff Size: Explanations and Implications.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 1999... Questioning the size of White House staffs dates back at least to Herbert Hoover's introduction of a noncareer, professional staff of four: "In bygone days, the President had one secretary... now there is a whole machine-gun squad to handle...

The Politics of Politics: Skowronek and Presidential Research.
September 1, 1999... Stephen Skowronek's The Politics Presidents Make (1993) has been rightfully greeted by presidential scholars as a "monumental book," "a brilliant reading of presidential leadership," and as a work that "earns a very special place in the library...

Theory and History, Structure and Agency.(response to article by Douglas J. Hoekstra in this issue, p. 657)
September 1, 1999... I received George Edwards's request for a response to Professor's Hoekstra's critique in the closing weeks of 1998. This was, I confess, a heady time for me and a peculiar one in which to read about the limits of the theory set forth in The...

Comments on Theory and History, Structure and Agency.(article by Stephen Skowronek in this issue, p. 672)
September 1, 1999... Any comment on Professor Skowronek's response courts the dangers of useless repetition sometimes illustrated in other journals. However, my comments can be brief, given the nature of Professor Skowronek's thoughtful response. Much of that...

The Democrats' Decline in the House during the Clinton Presidency: An Analysis of Partisan Swings.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 1999... The three elections for the House of Representatives held thus far during the Clinton presidency have all proved to be disappointing for President Clinton. In 1994, his party lost control of the House for the first time in forty years. The...

The Polls: Favorability Ratings of Presidents.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 1999... Bill Clinton's presidency has been beset by scandal, investigations, and, in early October 1998, the House Judiciary Committee commenced impeachment heatings. Throughout the late summer and fall of 1998, the media aired literally hundreds of...

The Law: Legal Disputes in the Clinton Years.
September 1, 1999... The first six years of the Clinton administration were packed with legal controversies, ranging from presidential immunity (the Paula Jones case) to the item veto. When the Jones case widened to include Monica Lewinsky, the investigation by...

The Contemporary Presidency: Moral Character in the White House: From Republican to Democratic.
September 1, 1999... Each new president changes the questions we ask about the presidency. Ronald Reagan's term led presidency scholars to ask about the kinds of knowledge that presidents need to function effectively. George Bush's term led to analysis of the...

The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis.(Review)
September 1, 1999... The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis. By Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997. 800 pp., $35.00 cloth; 468 pp., $16.95 paper. In 1997,...

Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964. By Michael R. Beschloss, ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.592 pp., $30.00 cloth; 592 pp., $16.00 paper. In 1997, three editorial projects opened treasures for scholars and...

Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes. By Stanley I. Kutler, ed. New York: Free Press, 1997. 675 pp., $30.00 cloth; 675 pp., $17.00 paper. In 1997, three editorial projects opened treasures for scholars and students of the American...

Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution. By Michael Meeropol. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. 377 pp., $29.95 cloth. Although these two books do not fit together, they are linked in that...

Sexual McCarthyism: Clinton, Starr and the Emerging Constitutional Crisis.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Sexual McCarthyism: Clinton, Starr and the Emerging Constitutional Crisis. By Alan M. Derschowitz. New York: Basic Books, 1998. 288 pp., $23.00 cloth. Although these two books do not fit together, they are linked in that they provide...

Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. By John A. Andrew III. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998. 224 pp., $24.95 cloth; 224 pp., $12.95 paper. John A. Andrew III sets out to correct the distortions coming from both the political Right and Left of...

The Unfinished Presidency.(Review)
September 1, 1999... The Unfinished Presidency. By Douglas Brinkley. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. 624 pp., $29.95 cloth; 624 pp., $15.95 paper. In The Unfinished Presidency, Douglas Brinkley has given us an engrossing tale of Jimmy Carter's post-presidency...

A Tangled Web: The Makings of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency.(Review)
September 1, 1999... A Tangled Web: The Makings of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency. By William Bundy. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998. 647 pp., $35.00 cloth; 672 pp., $16.00 paper. William Bundy has written an informative and engaging book on the foreign...

Speaking to the People: The Rhetorical Presidency in Historical Perspective.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Speaking to the People: The Rhetorical Presidency in Historical Perspective. By Richard J. Ellis, ed. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. 288 pp., $45.00 cloth; 288 pp., $16.95 paper. One hundred years ago, presidents "were to...

The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge.(Review)
September 1, 1999... The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge. By Robert H. Ferrell. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. 272 pp., $29.95 cloth. Speaking at "Calvin Coolidge: Examining the Evidence," a two-day conference hosted by the John E Kennedy Library in...

The Carter Presidency: Policy Choices in the Post-New Deal Era.(Review)
September 1, 1999... The Carter Presidency: Policy Choices in the Post-New Deal Era. By Gary M. Fink and Hugh Davis Graham, eds. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. 368 pp., $39.95 cloth. This collection of thirteen original essays is based on a...

The President as Leader: Appealing to the Better Angels of Our Nature.(Review)
September 1, 1999... The President as Leader: Appealing to the Better Angels of Our Nature. By Erwin C. Hargrove. Lawrence: University of Press Kansas, 1998. 229 pp., $25.00 cloth. In the preface to this judicious analysis of presidential leadership, Erwin...

Passages to the Presidency: From Campaigning to Governing.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Passages to the Presidency: From Campaigning to Governing. By Charles O. Jones. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998.232 pp., $39.95 cloth; 232 pp., $16.95 paper. Having recently completed a well-regarded book that placed the...

Nixon's Vietnam War.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Nixon's Vietnam War. By Jeffrey Kimball. Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1998. 528 pp., $39.95 cloth. Any scholar tempted to redeem President Richard Nixon's reputation by portraying him as one of the United States' premier foreign policy...

Nixon's Economy: Booms, Busts, Dollars, and Votes.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Nixon's Economy: Booms, Busts, Dollars, and Votes. By Allen J. Matusow. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988. 324 pp., $35.00 cloth. Richard Nixon's long career, notable for its ups and downs, also was marked by major policy shifts....

Inside OMB: Politics and Process in the President's Budget Office.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Inside OMB: Politics and Process in the President's Budget Office. By Shelley Lynne Tomkin. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. 392 pp., $50.95 cloth; 392 pp., $27.95 paper. Shelley Lynne Tomkin's new book, Inside OMB: Politics and Process in...

Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America.(Review)
September 1, 1999... Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America. By Harry L. Watson. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1997.240 pp., $35.00 cloth; 240 pp., $10.75 paper. Harry L. Watson's Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy...