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Jimmy Carter was an unexpected president. The first Southerner since the Civil War to gain the office, he had pursued the presidency at the grass roots as an outsider. A president who sought to run "a government as good as the American people," Carter soon found himself embroiled in system overload ...

Jimmy Carter was an unexpected president. The first Southerner since the Civil War to gain the office, he had pursued the presidency at the grass roots as an outsider. A president who sought to run "a government as good as the American people," Carter soon found himself embroiled in system overload as he worked on a domestic agenda to increase park lands; to make the federal judiciary accessible to more women and minorities; to better manage the civil service; to devise a rational, long-range policy of energy consumption and conservation; and to keep the deficit under control. Deadlocked with Congress, special interests, and, ultimately, caught up in the Iran hostage crisis, the outsider president saw many of his programs defeated and himself voted out of office.

As the scope and size of the U.S. government has expanded, the importance of good management to the success of a presidency has also increased. Although good management cannot guarantee political or policy success, poor management can certainly undermine good policy and political efforts.

In this ...

As the scope and size of the U.S. government has expanded, the importance of good management to the success of a presidency has also increased. Although good management cannot guarantee political or policy success, poor management can certainly undermine good policy and political efforts.

In this second edition of The Managerial Presidency James P. Pfiffner brings together both classic analyses and more recent treatments of managerial issues that affect the presidency. Some of the foremost presidency scholars have contributed to this volume, including Richard Neustadt, Charles O. Jones, Hugh Heclo, George Edwards, and Louis Fisher. This second edition includes more recent scholarship by Roger Porter, Steven Kelman, Peri Arnold, and Ronald Moe.

The focus of this collection is the extent to which presidents can exercise control over the executive branch bureaucracies and whether it is wise for them to exert that control. Part one deals with the question of how to organize the White House staff.If this organizational problem is not resolved, solving the broader problems of organization and policy will be that much more difficult. Part two addresses the question of how much control presidents should exert over the departments and agencies of the executive branch and how the White House staff and other political appointees relate to career civil servants. The final section examines presidential managerial reform efforts and the congressional role in managing the government.

Although the contributors to this collection do not all agree on how the presidency should be managed, there is surprising consensus on which questions ought to be asked. The analyses addressing those questionswill be of interest to students and scholars of the modern presidency as well as those interested in executive leadership and public administration.

This unique study focuses upon a specific component of American presidential rhetoric--how presidents depict the office--and relates that rhetorical tactic to broader questions of politics, public opinion, political symbolism, and presidential power. The work analyzes this specific rhetorical ...

This unique study focuses upon a specific component of American presidential rhetoric--how presidents depict the office--and relates that rhetorical tactic to broader questions of politics, public opinion, political symbolism, and presidential power. The work analyzes this specific rhetorical component longitudinally, examining a president's depiction of the office during the presidential campaign, throughout his term in office, and after leaving office. By presenting and analyzing generous examples of presidential rhetoric--from Lyndon Johnson through Bill Clinton--Zernicke offers a revealing look at the symbolic power of the presidency and the use of that power in political terms.

Popular interpretations of American government tend to center on the presidency. Successes and failures of government are often attributed to presidents themselves. But, though the White House stands as a powerful symbol of government, the United States has a separated system intentionally designed ...

Popular interpretations of American government tend to center on the presidency. Successes and failures of government are often attributed to presidents themselves. But, though the White House stands as a powerful symbol of government, the United States has a separated system intentionally designed to distribute power, not to concentrate it. Charles O. Jones explains that focusing exclusively on the presidency can lead to a seriously distorted picture of how the national government works. The role of the president varies widely, depending on his resources, advantages, and strategic position. Public expectations often far exceed the president's personal, political, institutional, or constitutional capacities for achievement. Jones explores how presidents find their place in the permanent government and how they are "fitted in" by others, most notably those on Capitol Hill. This book shows how a separated system of government works under the circumstances created by the Constitution and encouraged by a two-party system. Jones examines the organizational challenges facing presidents, their public standing and what it means, presidential agendas and mandates, and lawmaking - how it works, where the president fits in, and how it varies from issue to issue. He compares the post-World War II presidents and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of each in working within the separated system. Jones proposes a view of government that accepts divided government as a legitimate, even productive, form of decisionmaking and emphasizes the varying strategies available to presidents for governing. He concludes with a number of important lessons for presidents and advice on how to make the separatedsystem work better.