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Political Parties

• Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957), esp. chs. 2, 7-8

• Mayhew, Electoral Realignments: A Critique of an American Genre (2002)

James L. Sundquist (1983), Dynamics of the Party System

• Martin P. Wattenberg (1998), The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952-1996(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

Interest Groups

• Baumgartner and Leech, Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and

Political Science (1998)

• E.E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People (1960)

• Theodore Lowi, The End of Liberalism, Second Edition (1979)

• Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (1965)

State/Urban

• Robert Dahl, Who Governs, 1961.

• Robert S. Erikson, Gerald C. Wright, and John P. McIver, Statehouse Democracy: Public

Opinion and Policy in the American States, 1993 (Cambridge University Press).

• Rodney E. Hero, Faces of Inequality: Social Diversity in American Politics (1998 Oxford

University Press).

• John Pelissero, Cities, Politics, and Policy: A Comparative Analysis (2003, Congressional

Quarterly Press).

Presidential Politics

James David Barber, Presidential Character (2008)

• James Ceaser, Presidential Selection (1979)

• William Howell, Power Without Persuasion (2003)

Irving Janis, Victims of Groupthink (1972)

Charles Jones, The Presidency in a Separated System (2005)

• Sidney Milkis, The President and the Parties (1993)

• Terry Moe, "The Politicized Presidency," in John Chubb and Paul Peterson, The New

Direction in American Politics (1985)

Political Parties

1) Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957), esp. chs. 2, 7-8



2) Mayhew; Electoral Realignments: A Critique of an American Genre (2002)

Synthesizes the important literature on realignments/elections (Key 1955; Schattschneider

1960; Sundquist 1983; Burnham 1965, 67, 70) to come up with fifteen distinct claims about

political reality based on these major works:

1) Voting patterns show a few specified regaling elections; 2) realignments

occur with regularity/periodicity; 3) they occur about every 30 years; 4)strengthening/weakening of party identification leads to realignments; 5)

voter concern/turnout unusually high in these elections; 6) realignments

marked by turmoil in presidential nominating conventions; 7) good showings

by 3rd

parties tend to stimulate (at the very least take place just before)

realignments; 8) realignments feature voter cleavages over interests,

ideologies, and issues which replace previous cleavages; 9) elections at

realignment junctures are marked by insurgent-led ideological polarization;

10) US House realignment elections hinge on national issues, non-realigning

elections on local ones; 11) election realignments are associated with major

changes in government policy; 12) electoral realignments bring on long spans

of unified party control of gov’t - House, Senate, presidency - and such spans

are a precondition of major policy innovation; 13) electoral realignments are

distinctively associated with “redistribute policies” (initiatives of class wide

impact such as Social Security); 14) the American public expresses itself

effectively and consequently during electoral realignments, but not

otherwise; 15) there existed a “System of 1896” (Schattschneider (1960): aka

“The Progressive Era” ;the period in American political history from about

1896 to 1932 that was dominated by the Republican party, excepting the

1912 split in which Democrats seized power for eight years; central domestic

issues concerned government regulation of railroads and large corporations

("trusts"), the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the needfor a new banking system, corruption in party politics, primary elections,

direct election of senators, racial segregation, efficiency in government,

women's suffrage, and control of immigration.

All fifteen claims are examined one by one and assessed for their empirical validity and

“illuminative power.” He concludes that these assumptions do not hold up well and that the

causes, precursors, defining properties, measures, indicators, concomitants, and consequences

associated with realignments and critical elections do not line up on the historical calendar the

way they should. What then, he asks, can we generalize about American electoral history?

Mayhew offers three alternative concepts to consider when studying elections:

Contingency (elections are not contingency-free; in fact many of their outcomes rely

improbable such as economic crises or terrorists attacks; elections and their underlying causes

are not usefully sortable into generation-long spans); and Short-Term Strategy (parties and

candidates may accommodate major impulses from the electorate without any tell-tale signs of

realignment appearing in elections; elections are more influenced by immediate voter concerns

than realignment literature admits); and Valence Issues (Stokes 1966; those that are uniformly



disliked by all voters, like corruption; Mayhew argues that closer examination reveals most

elections hinge on these, not on position-issues).

Mayhew also offers alternative narratives than economic-dualism (farmer-labor coalitions

vs. merchants/capitalists) described by realignment theorists. There is bellicosity (times of war

bring about divisions in the electorate); race (intrudes into elections, party strategies, andpolicy making); and economic growth (voters tend to reward governments for rises in per capita

income and penalize them for slumps in that category).

3) James L. Sundquist (1983), Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment

of Political Parties in the US

This edition, like the first published ten years earlier, uses the lessons of major political

party realignments in the 1850s, 1890s, and 1930s to develop a theory of party realignment.

He applies this theory to the American political scene up through the midterm elections of

1982. In his update, Sudquist argues while the de-alignment of party loyalties and attachments

has taken place, no realignments have occurred (as yet) as would be expected from earlier

cases.

Three generally recognized critical realignments (Civil War Era; 1890s; 1930s) are marked by

a change in the terms of the party conflict and the party coalition, but Sundquist does not find

such a shift in the part balance existing in the wake of Reagan’s landslide victory in the 1980

election, an indication to scholars and journalists alike that “it is plainly the end of an era.”

Sundquist criticizes the heavy reliance on election data to determine the presence of

realignments and instead emphasizes party registration data and public opinion polls (despitetheir admitted weaknesses). Sundquist argues that several things have to be present before an

election can be considered realignment; among them: a new political issue(s) shatters the party

system’s characteristic inertia (ie slavery, hardship of farmers/inequality of wealth; Great

Depression solutions); such issue(s) must cut across the existing line of party cleavage; issue(s)

must dominate political debate and polarize the community, resulting in passion and high voter

interest/turnout; major political groups must take distinct and opposing policy positions; and

when moderate centrists have lost control of one or both of the major parties.

Sundquist asks if the “Reagan Revolution” of 1980 signaled a major realignment of the party

system and if disgruntled Democrats (who had left the party temporarily to support GeorgeWallace in 1968) finally become Republicans? Not according to his analysis. Evidence for this

conclusion includes poll results showing the GOP had lost ground among likely voters and

sweeping gains in the House for Democrats in November of 1982. After two years in office

Reagan had not duplicated the feat of FDR in forging a new majority coalition and the analogy

to 1932’s realignment had failed. The “protest vote” of 1980 had not been solidified into a

durable Republican alliance.



4) Martin P. Wattenberg (1998), The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952-1996

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

The Decline of American Political Parties argues that the political salience of parties has

declined significantly, with growing numbers of voters feeling indifference toward both parties

and no longer viewing partisanship as a significant or even meaningful form of self-

identification. According to Wattenberg, this has resulted largely from changes in electoral

rules, in particular the decision by both parties to award delegates to their nominating

conventions on the basis of the results of primary elections rather than on the basis of decisions

by party leaders, and in the manner in which campaigns have been conducted, such as the

declining role of the parties in funding campaigns given their increasingly high cost in the

television era, that have made them more candidate-centered. Thus, mentions of parties in

campaign advertisements, other forms of political communication, and in media coverage have

declined significantly in recent decades and voters have become increasingly likely to split their

tickets. This has occurred despite the fact that the number of voters perceiving significant

differences between the parties actually increased in the 1980s as the parties became more

ideologically polarized. Moreover, this phenomenon cannot be attributed to increases in the

average educational attainment of voters (as better educated voters have been no more likely

to split their tickets than less educated voters) or to generational replacement (as ticket

splitting has increased among older voters as well).

Interest Groups

1) Baumgartner and Leech (1998) - argues that while interest groups were once viewed by

scholars as the most important factor in the American political system, they are now

seen as a marginal influence not because of their diminishing power but because of

changes in the approach to their study by political scientists. By reviewing hundreds of

books and articles from the 1940s onward, the authors show how methodological and

conceptual problems have distracted researchers, thus making interest groups appear

less relevant than they are. From the publisher: “The authors begin by explaining howthe group approach to politics became dominant forty years ago in reaction to the

constitutional-legal approach that preceded it. They show how it fell into decline in the

1970s as scholars ignored the impact of groups on government to focus on more

quantifiable but narrower subjects, such as collective-action dilemmas and the dynamics

of recruitment. Another major problem stems from the dearth of systematic data on

interest groups that is available to scholars of, say, political behavior or international

relations. As a result, despite intense research activity, we still know very little about



how groups influence day-to-day governing. Baumgartner and Leech argue that scholars

need to develop a more coherent set of research questions, focus on large-scale studies,

and pay more attention to the context of group behavior. Their book will give new

impetus and direction to a field that has been in the academic wilderness too long.”

The book provides no original data or hypothesis, but is rather a meta-analysis of work donein the field to construct, what they feel, would be the best approach. They argue that scholarly

research on interest groups can be divided into areas of advance (research on mobilization and

membership; group lobbying; policy subsystems; issue networks; coalitions; and cross-national

studies of group-state relations) and areas of confusion (quantitative research on the impact of

PAC contributions and activities on Congressional policy). “Confusion” occurs when lots of

research amounts to little increase in actual knowledge as scholars analyze only a few issues

and groups, fail to use universal or comparable measures, definitions, and concepts and do not

account for “contextual factors” such as issue salience and degree of conflict and consensus

among groups. The book is criticized for not practicing what it preaches: while it advocates a

research agenda, it does not execute it.

They also recognize areas of avoidance - available research avenues scholars have yet to

exploit. This is due mainly to too many research questions and a lack of viable approaches to

solving research questions. This has led to many unaddressed empirical questions: are

common group tactics useful? How have groups embraced changes in technology? How have

groups impacted changes in presidential administrations or partisan control of Congress?

*Above are the main take-aways from the book but I would suggest consulting it for a nice

review of pretty much all literature done on interests groups since the 1940s.*

2) Schattschneider (1960) - "The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorussings with a strong upper-class accent." Schattschneider criticizes group theory for

trying to explain too much and assuming that government merely ratifies the existing

balance of power among groups. The outcome of a controversy is often determined by

the success or failure of efforts to enlarge its scope and that the conflicts among private

groups are taken into the legislative arena by those groups seeking to alter the power

balance. Pressure groups fail to represent the lower income groups. A vigorously

competitive party system offers the semi-sovereign people their best chance for a role

in the decision-making process, while one party politics tends to vest political power in

the hands of those people who already have economic power. 40% of adult citizens do

not vote. They will vote only if they perceive clearer differences between parties.

Schattschneider criticizes political scientists and philosophers for falsely portraying

American citizens as ignorant about politics - while studies at the time showed their lack of

knowledge about such matters, he denies the conventional attitude that democracy was

designed to make voters “think about politics the way a US senator would.” He instead argues

that it is the job of the representatives to think about political matters for the people, as



average citizens cannot be reasonably expected to know enough about politics to actually

govern. Democracy should be redefined, he argues, so that people with knowledge and

confidence about the matters are the decision-makers.

That being said, interest groups, or “pressure groups,” have redefined the interests of the

people to be pro-business and bias toward the upper class. His disdain for these groups is clearin this work. He uses data to show that business and the upper-classes are more likely to

organize for politics; that they have greater political resources (money, prestige); and that their

small numbers tend to dominate interest-group politics. He estimates that about “90 percent

of the people cannot get into the ‘pressure system,’” a phrase he uses to describe interest

group politics. He rejects the assumption that the interests of these groups represent those of

the whole community and proposes a conception of democracy characterized by strife - the

struggle between private interest and social interests. A major problem in this dilemma, he

notes, is that those who would be best served by the social interests are the nonvoters, who

are generally drawn from the young, poor, and racial minorities. For them, the direction of

politics has been already set by traditional interest groups and non-programmatic parties that

do not represent their interests. He warns, “the present boycott *ie non-participation] has

brought the political system very near to something like the limit of tolerance of passive

abstention,” as the failure of parties and leadership to define and push the values of a vast

segment of the nation had left them powerless and forced them to reject democratic means.

Disadvantaged classes simply gave up on the political process.

He argues the best solution to this crisis in democracy is a vigorously competitive party

system, as opposed to competing interest groups - that will give the people their best chance

for a role in the decision-making process. He concludes that the “role of the people in the

political system is determined largely by the conflict system, for it is conflict that involves the

people in politics and the nature of conflict determines the nature of public involvement.” Heoffers a solution that involves redefining democracy to distinguish between the “democratic

and antidemocratic elements” as it was once defined as lumping the two together, but we can

see by the usurpation of the democratic process by “pressure groups” that this is no longer the

case. This will draw light to the issues and hopefully increase competition as, “above

everything, the people are powerless if the political enterprise is not competitive.” His

normative definition of democracy, offered at the book’s end is: “democracy is a competitive

political system in which competing leaders and organizations define the alternatives of public

policy in such a way that that the public can participate in the decision-making process.” He

also concludes that “conflict, competition, organization, leadership, and responsibly are the

ingredients of a working definition of democracy.”

3) The End of Liberalism (Lowi; 2nd

Ed. 1979)

In this book Lowi argues that the liberal conception of politics in America has eroded to a

form of interest-group liberalism in which Congress has abdicated its role as a representative of

the people, instead delegating much of this power to special interest groups. This IGL is



accomplished mainly through the rise of the administrative state, in which basic interests

become dominated by organizations who are willing and able to use their newly found power.

IGL features organized interest groups emerging from every sector of our lives to work both in

concert with one another and in contention to opposing interests. The role of government in

the IGL model is to insure access to the most well organized groups and to ratify the

agreements and adjustments already worked out among the competing leaders. It is theinterest groups, not Congress, who formulate public policy. Congress becomes a mere rubber

stamp for the proposals of the interest groups. There is also a fusion of private interest groups

and government bureaucracies, thanks in part to the expanding administrative state, as we

observe the “ethical and conceptual mingling of the notion of organized private groups with the

notions of local government and self-government” (p. 54).

The appeal of IGL is that it appears to be providing governmental operations with a sense of

stability and increased representation as many diverse groups are heard. Lowi contends,

however, that genuine flexibility, democratic forms, and even legitimacy are all sacrificed. IGL

disdains formalism (especially in the form of law) because it extends representation to the

administrative agencies, not the courts or legislatures. IGL wants to prevent any such law that

restricts broad delegations of power to the executive agencies that would interfere with its

“administrative representation.” Interest groups, like the National Association of County

Agricultural Agents, work in conjunction with government entities such as the Department of

Agriculture to shape policy and then push their agendas on congressional committees or

subcommittees who in turn develop policy favorable to the interest groups. Here it is the

interest group, not the constituents, that is designing policy. This process precludes any real

representative substance.

As mentioned above, IGL is especially hostile to law. Laws interfere with the political

process as they can abruptly change the rules of the game. Law hinders a major feature IGL;the delegation of power - which is when “a legislature confers upon an administrative agency

certain tasks and powers the legislature would and could itself exercise if that were not

impracticable. Delegations can be narrow or broad, but the practice under the liberal state has

most generally and consistently been broad” (p. 92). This is a key process by which IGL has

supplanted traditional liberalism. This phenomenon began mainly in the 1930s as the national

government began to take on regulatory functions. The New Deal started this shift to an

executive-centered government as the national government took on regulatory powers and

needed a plethora of executive bureaucratic agencies to handle such operations. “The federal

government literally grew by delegation. Although Congress continued to posses the

lawmaking authority, it delegated that authority increasingly in statute after statute to anagency in the Executive Branch or to the president, who had the power to sub-delegate to an

agency…*this+ delegation was recognized for what it really was - administrative delegation” (p.

274). Soon we saw delegation of all authority (executive, legislative, and judicial) in a single

administrative body (Lowi points specifically to the Interstate Commerce Act, p. 96).

Lowi calls this shift to interest-group liberalism “The Second Republic of the United States.”

Executive power, administrative expertise, and interest-group wisdom have all supplanted state



and local lawmaking and congressional deliberation for setting the nation’s course.

Republicans and Democrats alike have sought broad discretion and sponsored-interest

representation in areas such as wage and price control, agriculture, energy, commerce,

consumer safety, and the environment. The national government monopolizes a private

activity and authorizes an administrative agency to operate it without legal guidelines. This

state of permanent receivership has led to programs like Medicare and Medicaid: thegovernment can control a part of the economy (health care) by underwriting a private sector

but without actually operating it.

Interest-group liberalism corrupts democratic government by confusing expectations about

democratic institutions; renders government impotent; demoralizes government and corrupts

government by weakening its formal procedures (p. 295-298).

4) Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (1965)

Here Olson challenges the conventional assumption that “groups of people with common

interests attempt to further those common interests,” a view that is based on the

understanding that the individuals in such groups are acting out of self interest. His goal of the

book is to challenge the conventional wisdom that “if the members of some group have a

common interest or objective, and if they would all be better off if that objective were

achieved…the individuals of that group would, if they were rational and self -interested, act to

achieve that objective” unless they are coerced to or induced by some “separate and selective

incentive.”

Instead, Olson argues that “rational, self -interested individuals will not act to achieve their

common or group interest” because of rationality and self-interest. He adds that individuals inany group attempting collective action will have incentives to "free ride" on the efforts of

others if the group is working to provide public goods. Individuals will not “free ride” in groups

which provide benefits only to active participants. “Public goods” are those that are non-

excludable, such as military defense, and therefore cannot be doled out to nor withheld from

specific individuals. The selfish person, therefore, will have no incentive to act in accordance

with the group’s efforts if s/he can get something for nothing.

Olson’s study focuses specifically on labor unions, arguing that while these groups may be

beneficial for laborers who join them, most will not join unless there is some form of selective

(individual) incentive. Why join a labor group and pay union fees if you will be able to enjoy thebenefits without doing so? One way to circumvent this problem is forced unionization through

legislation, which eliminates free-riders but raises concerns over the coercive use of

government power to in effect control what groups people join. Government is essentially

telling workers that union membership is now a “non-excludable good,” along the lines of

other government services all enjoy without direct consent. This coercive pressure of course

problematic because workers may feel unfairly treated and may resist government attempts to

compel them to accept a non-excludable good. A more effective means, argues Olson, is



offering selective incentives to those who join. Consider groups like the NRA who offer

magazine subscriptions or special events for its members. Olson does make very convincing

arguments about the difficulties in organizing people. Certainly, many people do not want to

invest resources into an effort that they will gain the benefit of regardless of their effort.

Olson’s work had a significant impact on interest group literature as it showed “how wrongthe pluralists were to ignore questions of mobilization and internal maintenance…creating a

whole set of research questions that the pluralists had wrongly taken for granted: how groups

mobilize and maintain themselves.” Before this work, the predominant topics of studies of

interest groups were done on lobbying in the legislature or bureaucracy and normative essays

on pluralism and groups. After 1965, the focus shifted to the topic of internal operations.

Olson’s work took the focus off of external activities of groups and placed it on the internal

dynamics of group membership and maintenance. Especially lost in this shift was the study of

lobbying.

His book also highlighted a critical flaw in the pluralist assumption that “all potential groups

would have an equal chance of participating in the pressure system. “ Smaller, business-

oriented groups were able to organize more easily than groups with many potential members

seeking only collective benefits. “Consumers would never rival producers as interest groups” as

the poor and disadvantaged would never be able to overcome the obstacles to mobilization.

(See Baumgartner and Leech, 1998, p. 64-73.)

State/Urban

1) Dahl (1961) Who Governs? - I sent out a rather lengthy summary of this book a while

ago. Let me know if you need it again.

2) Erikson et. al (1993) - The importance of public opinion in the determination of public

policy is the subject of considerable debate. Professors Erikson, Wright, and McIver

make the argument that state policies are highly responsive to public opinion, and they

show how the institutions of state politics work to achieve this high level of

responsiveness. They analyze state policies from the 1930s to the present, drawing from

and contributing to major lines of research on American politics. Their conclusions are

applied to central questions of democratic theory, and affirm the robust character of state institutions.

In Statehouse Democracy , Erikson, Wright, and McIver analyze the linkage between the

ideological views of the general public and elites in each state and the policy outputs of the

legislature. Although this book is not primarily focused on the legislature, a careful reading of it

provides important insights about legislative elections, the role of parties in the legislature, and

the representative system. The book is important because it demonstrates the possibility of



making a major contribution to our understanding of state elections, legislatures, and policy-

making by undertaking a comparative study of nearly all the states (48 of them), using existing

data. Skillful use of opinion surveys and policy data enable Erikson, Wright, and Mclver to clarify

how and why states differ in policy making.

The authors use empirical data (“state ideological preferences” determined by 13-years of cumulative surveys of CBS/NYTimes) to come up with their argument that X (mean ideology in a

state) Y (mean policy output) and finding that, contrary to conventional scholarly wisdom,

state politics are responsive to state public opinion and that, for the most part, state political

outcomes correlate very strongly with state ideology. Bluntly put, “our conclusion reverses

that of much of the state policy literature of the past twenty years. State politics - elections,

legislatures, and executives in all their variations - do matter. State political structures appear

to do a good job of delivering more liberal policies to more liberal states and more conservative

policies to more conservative states. Across an impressive range of policies, public opinion

counts, and not just a little.”

The heart of the book is chapter 4, where the mean liberal-conservative self-identification

of citizens from each state (cleverly measured by the state-level aggregation of some 142,000

responses to CBS/New York Times random-digit-dialing telephone surveys conducted between

1976 and 1988) is related to the liberalism or conservatism of state policy (measured, ca. 1980,

as a composite of eight issues -- education spending, scope of Medicaid, scope of Aid to

Families with Dependent Children, consumer protection, criminal justice, legalized gambling,

Equal Rights Amendment ratification, and tax progressivity). Across states, the bivariate

correlation between public opinion and policy is a hefty .82, which rises, when measurement

error is corrected, to a remarkable .91 . Thus, they are able to make with conviction the claim

that “public opinion is the dominant influence on policy making in the American states." They

even note that “this result holds up in the face of controls for the socio-economic variables thatthe state policy literature had insisted dominated the state policy process.” They argue that

such variables (wealth, education, urbanism), simply reflect the state’s public ideological taste

and make little statistical contribution.

This research is methodologically much more solid than the old representation-in-Congress

studies, with their dyadic focus and their poor measurement of district opinions. It outdoes

most national-level, over-time studies that are subject to causal inference nightmares of

spuriousness and/or reciprocal causation. This is state-of-the-art research. It has profound

(though not extensively discussed) implications for democratic theory. Even in the American

states-arguably the least representative of our political institutions-citizens' preferencesapparently have powerful effects upon policy.

The concluding chapter places their findings in the context of the behavioral literature on

democratic politics by placing it in the context of Campbell et al. (1960) whose The American

Voter book found that few Americans were motivated by policy issues or used the spatial map

of the Left-Right ideological continuum for political guidance. Rather they presented a mostly

non-ideological electorate that gave surprisingly little attention to the policy issues of the



campaign, voting mostly based on party identification and candidate personalities. They also

contrast their findings to those of Stokes and Miller (1996) who found woefully ill-informed

voters in congressional elections. Converse (1964) is also broached. There he argued that a

substantial portion of the public response to survey questions about political topics are “non-

attitudes.” Even updated research on the topic (Nie, Verba and Petrock, 1979; Knight, 1985)

suggests that ideology activates no more than a minority in even the most heated of campaigns.

Questions remain: just because they have shown a link between public ideology and state

policy, does that mean the voters are voting in an informed manner? Or is it the case that they

are voting with ignorance like Campbell et al. (1960) point out: party ID and reactions to

candidates? Perhaps the politicians interpret this type of voting as an ideological display and

enact policy to match it. Also, would these findings “stretch” to federal elections, or is a

different behavioral phenomenon occurring between state and federal elections?

-JWD: see ch. 10 for a nice lit review and contextual analysis of this book vis-à-vis other, similar

research.

3) Hero (1998) - The distinctive thesis of Faces of Inequality is that a state's racial and

ethnic composition, as much as any other factor, shapes its political processes and

policies. To understand state politics, therefore, we must consider them from the

perspective of social diversity. Scholars have broadly acknowledged that racial and

ethnic diversity are central to American political history, but Rodney E. Hero is the first

to posit and systematically examine this diversity as essential to our understanding of

contemporary American politics.

In these pages, Hero regards race/ethnicity as an American "dilemma" whose importancetranscends state boundaries, yet whose impact upon U.S. politics varies widely. He classifies

states' social diversity patterns as homogenous, heterogeneous, or bifurcated, and

demonstrates how these patterns influence political tendencies. Social diversity, he finds, is

strongly related not only to political processes, but also to specific policies and outcomes, such

as educational policies, incarceration rates, and infant mortality. Hero's interpretation provides

a new way of looking at state politics, one that causes us to broadly rethink U.S. politics from

the standpoint of social diversity.

The author states at the outset that he perceives race/ethnicity as a defining

characteristic of US history and that he is seeking to make “our understanding of state politicsmore complete by not only more clearly acknowledging, but by systematically incorporating,

social diversity” into the understanding of state politics. He argues that “social diversity has a

critical impact on state political processes and institutions, as well as on public polices, and it is

also evident at the sub-state level.” Hero calls for a “unifying, contextually based theoretical

framework” from which to approach his social diversity interpretation in order to address major

questions, issues, and puzzles of US state politics are to be considered. He puts forth the claim

that “mixtures or cleavages of various minority and/or racial/ethnic groups within a state - the



types and levels of social diversity or complexity - are critical in understanding the politics and

policy in the states.”

His main hypothesis is that “heterogeneous sates would tend to have more powerful

and/or professionalized legislatures and governors because the complexity associated with

heterogeneity necessitates government to manage that complexity and diversity.”

To buttress his argument, Hero systematically analyzes the relationship of state racial

and ethnic make-up to an umbrella of political features using simple state-level regression

analysis. Strength and formation of political parties, interest groups, state policies, and

institutions are found to be significantly related to state's race and ethnic composition. Further,

Hero finds that these variables give much more explanatory value to political outcomes at the

state level. He claims that knowing the social composition while analyzing state-level politics

adds a `face' to American politics. Social diversity disaggregates, contextualizes, and serves as a

core influence on and explanation of political phenomenon at the state-level.

He concludes that “overall, the evidence strongly supports the claims that social

diversity has significant implications for a variety of state policies, especially differential or

disaggregated policies.”

Of interest: -author notes: “Elazar’s *1966: American Federalism; 1972 2nd

. ed.+ ‘political

culture’ idea is perhaps the most influential single perspective, and among the most wide-

ranging, in the study of state politics in the US.”

-*see ch. 2 for a "summary and overview of perspectives on state politics and policy"*

4) John Pelissero, Cities, Politics, and Policy: A Comparative Analysis (2003, CongressionalQuarterly Press).

As the large majority of the American population lives in an urban environment and

increasing numbers of minority groups and immigrants come to the US, new battles are being

fought over rights for women, gays, and various ethnic and racial groups - nowadays these civic

controversies are being hashed out in city politics as issues such as school choice, taxes,

abortion, and benefits for domestic partners are dealt with at the city level. The distribution of

political power in cities is shifting the policy outcomes in many urban areas and mayors and city

councils across the country are contributing to this shift. Our cities, argues Pelissero, once the

dependents of national and state governments, are now heavily interdependent and exist in acomplex intergovernmental environment. This edited volume presents current research in the

field of urban politics and shows how political participation in cities has changed over time.

The authors also give a preview of the research agenda for the next decade by offering new

avenues for empirical research and redefinitions of existing models as well as new research

agendas.



Pelissero’s introductory chapter traces the study of urban politics from the 50s and 60s

where it was a debate over who had power to the 70s where cities were in a period of “crisis”

featuring rising crime and civil unrest. Many cities responded to this by opening their political

process to once marginailized minority groups and new relationships were forged between the

national and city governments to enhance the flow of federal money to help cities deal with

these issues. The 80s brought urban economic development while the 90s brought city growthas they became centers for local businesses and tourism - many city governments “reinivented”

their sytle of governing to accommodate these changes. He argues that cities today are in a

strong position with more capacity to govern than ever. Problems still exist though, as the

federal government curtails its financial support and states mandate new rules for cities

without providing the funding for them.

Pelissero reproduces the Systems Model of Urban Politics (Easton, 1953) in which political

systems, like natural systems, are open to influences from their environment. This

environment is one in which “authoritative decision-makers” respond to inputs and transform

them into political and policy outputs. Pelisserio’s draws upon this model and theorizes that

“the urban political system is composed of inputs from the political environment that are

channeled into the political process…*this process+ is the essence of deciding the ‘authoritative

allocation of values.’ The result of the decision makers’ processing of inputs yields outputs”

which lead to outcomes that send information back to the government. “The process is best

viewed as a continuous stream of feedback to the environment that may result in the alteration

and creation of inputs that keep cycling in the system” (chart p. 4). He argues that our

fundamental knowledge of cities, politics, and policy has been formed by case study and survey

research and that the field has evolved from fairly normative prescriptions of what it was

believed cities ought to be at the turn of the 20th

century to valid social science theories of the

nature of urban politics.

Key findings from the book: city politics is no longer isolated and much of what city

governments do is influenced by public officials and institutions at higher levels of government;

citizen participation in city government is a “classic system input,” but the level of involvement

is lower among the disadvantaged and among racial minorities; today’s urban bureaucracies

(especially in N.E. industrial cities) are dominated by black leaders who must respond to the

newer Latino and Asian populations that have challenged the entrenched political system;

debates about who governs have been replaced by debates over how governance occurs and

power now depends on how relationships are structured in the community - power is now

found in organized governing coalitions and these arraignments are built through 1) defining

purposes and setting an agenda of congruent purposes, 2) mobilizing a complementary blend of resources commensurate with that agenda, and 3) imbuing the effort with a sense of

feasibility.

Other findings: the study of comparative mayoral politics is difficult because of the

intricacies of their personalities and the differences in institutions governing their actions and is

best done by case study rather than in aggregate; research on city councils reveals a significant

degree of variation in their organization, elections, legislative roles and policymaking impact



which is mainly related to structural differences especially that of Mayor-Council Governments

vs. Council-Manager Governments as MCGs are larger, work more, and have more partisan

elections and CMGs are smaller and work in less partisan environments.

Also: Urban public education can now be considered as “accountability-based” politics

because the public, policymakers, and organized interests have increased their demands forimprovement in district-level governance and student performance.

Presidency

1) Barber - Presidential Character (2008)

This book focuses on the psychological characteristics of a president that are essential in

predicting how he will occupy his office. Barber argues that the presidency is a unique

American institution that has special sentimental feelings for Americans unlike Congress or the

Courts. The president is seen as our decisive leader and people feel a unique sense of

attachment to him. The President’s unique character, world view, and style all impact his

personality which shapes his executive behavior on presidential matters great and small. This

personality interacts with the national “climate of expectations” dominant during the time he

serves and the resonance (or lack thereof) of these two dynamics will shape the path his

presidency takes. Barber also argues that his character, world view, and style are all shaped at

an early age and that it is important to investigate those formative years when predicting his

actions.

Barber assumes four distinct presidential personality types that are defined according to

how active he is and whether or not he gives the impression that he enjoys his political life.

These four types are: 1) Active-Positive (adaptive: self-confident; flexible; creates

opportunities for action; enjoys the exercise of power, does not take himself too seriously;

optimistic; emphasizes the "rational mastery" of his environment; power used as a means to

achieve beneficial results; Kennedy, Ford, Obama(?); 2) Active-Negative (compulsive: power as

a means to self-realization; expends great energy on tasks but derives little joy; preoccupied

with whether he is failing or succeeding; low self-esteem; inclined to rigidity and pessimism;

highly driven; problem managing aggression; Johnson, Nixon); 3) Passive-Positive (compliant:

seek to be loved; easily manipulated; low self-esteem is overcome by ingratiating personality;

reacts rather than initiates; superficially optimistic; Reagan, Clinton); 4) Passive-Negative (withdrawn: responds to a sense of duty; avoid power; low self-esteem compensated by service

to others; responds rather than initiates; avoids conflict and uncertainty; emphasizes principles

and procedures and an aversion to politicking; Washington, Eisenhower).



2) Carter (1979) - He seeks here to offer prescriptive remedies for what he views is the

absence of a “traditional” approach to the study of presidential selection in the field of

political science on the whole. Ignored almost entirely in the literature on this topic,

argues Carter, is “the thought of America’s past statesman and political theorists.” This

is due mostly to the extra-Constitutional status of most aspects of the current selection

system, including popular elections, parties, conventions, and campaigns, which Carterargues all “developed outside of, and largely in opposition to, the original Constitutional

design.” This has placed focus for studying presidential selection outside the thoughts

of the Framers and instead shifted focus onto “party historians,” who (at the time of this

writing) taught us that the selection system not so much an institution of conscious

design by the Framers but rather a search by politicians for the most effective way to

win power. Research on presidential selection has progressed unrestrained by any

classical conception of its purpose, creating a scholarly license that allows for too many

creative approaches to the subject. “The field lacks an approach that defines the basic

elements of the selection process, indicates the relationship among them, and

establishes criteria by which to judge proposals for change.”

Giving credit where it is due, Carter sets forth to examine the works of some of America's

leading statesmen (the Founders, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and Woodrow Wilson)

in order to integrate contemporary institutional analysis of the selection process with the

relevant themes of American political thought. He argues that changes in the nominating and

election processes, far from being simply tactical responses by practical politicians, were also

well thought out attempts to solve certain institutional problems, especially those involving the

control of political ambition, the relationship of president to party, and the maintenance of

regime legitimacy. In sum, it is Ceaser's contention that the ideas of farsighted politicians led to

overall strategies, while the subsequent "search for political advantage then provided the

immediate force for its enactment" (p. 219).

Carter’s final conclusions include a prescription for modern politics: “a call for the

reinstitution of strong electoral parties for the purposes or providing an informal check on the

president and restraining the leadership appeals of presidential aspirants.” The heart of his

recommendation is a case for stronger political parties to restrain executive authority. He

argues that parties can serve as a great check against executive as parties can act as

“intermediary power brokers” to negotiate with the incumbent or nominee and ensure he is

acting with the interests of the party in mind. Stronger parties would exert great influence over

the president, especially if he fears revocation of endorsement and loss of nomination. This

measure would be the best way, Carter argues, to ensure the five normative functions of asound presidential selection system are met: “minimize the harmful results of the pursuit of

power by ambitious contenders; help establish the proper kind of presidential leadership and

proper scope of executive power; help secure a competent executive; ensure a legitimate

accession, and provide for the proper degree of choice and change.”



3) William Howell, Power Without Persuasion (2003)

Since the early 1960s, scholarly thinking on the power of U.S. presidents has rested on these

words: "Presidential power is the power to persuade." Power, in this formulation, is strictly

about bargaining and convincing other political actors to do things the president cannot

accomplish alone. Power without Persuasion argues otherwise. Focusing on presidents' abilityto act unilaterally, William Howell provides the most theoretically substantial and far-reaching

reevaluation of presidential power in many years. He argues that presidents regularly set

public policies over vocal objections by Congress, interest groups, and the bureaucracy.

Throughout U.S. history, going back to the Louisiana Purchase and the Emancipation

Proclamation, presidents have set landmark policies on their own. More recently, Roosevelt

interned Japanese Americans during World War II, Kennedy established the Peace Corps,

Johnson got affirmative action underway, Reagan greatly expanded the president's powers of

regulatory review, and Clinton extended protections to millions of acres of public lands. Since

September 11, Bush has created a new cabinet post and constructed a parallel judicial system

to try suspected terrorists.

Howell not only presents numerous new empirical findings but goes well beyond the

theoretical scope of previous studies. Drawing richly on game theory and the new

institutionalism, he examines the political conditions under which presidents can change policy

without congressional or judicial consent. Clearly written, Power without Persuasion asserts a

compelling new formulation of presidential power, one whose implications will resound.

Howell counters Neustadt’s (1991) argument that the president must rally other actors

to his side through the art of persuasion and bargaining in order to accomplish his goals.

Rather, the president achieves much of his agenda without the help of Congress, opting

instead to employ tools such as executive agreements and executive orders. In other words,the president needs neither congressional nor judicial approval for his policies to be put in

place.

Howell describes this phenomenon in his “unilateral politics model.” This game-

theoretic model predicts that presidents will use unilateral action under two conditions. In the

first condition, when Congress is ready to enact sweeping legislation that the president

opposes, he can try and preempt Congress by taking unilateral action through moderate policy

shifts. In the second condition, when Congress is gridlocked, the president can act to get his

agenda implemented through unilateral action. However, the president’s power to do so is kept

in check by Congress and the courts.

Howell’s empirical testing of his model involves a dependent variable that the author

calls “significant executive orders,” executive orders that have either been mentioned in the

appendix of The Congressional Record or in the opinions of at least two federal court opinions.

The importance of executive orders may not be apparent until years later (Howell notes 15

years), so he stops his collection of data from these sources in 1985. To bring the time series up

to date, he uses the New York Times. If an executive order is mentioned in the New York Times



within one year of its issuance, it also was included. The author ultimately finds support for two

of his three hypotheses. Specifically, his regression analyses support his first hypothesis, that

the size of party majorities affects the number of significant executive orders, and his third

hypothesis, that a greater number of significant executive orders will be issued during times

of divided government than during unified government.

Howell presents an interesting way of looking at presidential power. Certainly, modern

presidents are in the position to use unilateral action more often and more effectively than

their predecessors, with the author presenting a model to predict when this will happen. The

author, however, does not recognize the role of players in the system outside the three

branches of government. Surely, public opinion, the media, and interest groups can either

enhance or limit the president’s use of his unilateral powers. The model does not account for

this. That said, this book does advance our understanding of how modern presidents govern

and the tools that he has at his command.

Power without Persuasion also draws attention to a divide between scholarly studies

and what in reality often takes place in the decision-making processes of the U.S. political

system. Howell shows how conventional accounts of presidential power focus on a president’s

skill, reputation, and ability to persuade and negotiate within a legislative body. Previous

studies have analyzed personal qualities of presidents and distinguish good from bad presidents

by their ability to negotiate with Congress. By so doing, they position the president on the

periphery of decision making: direct presidential power is limited to veto rights and bargaining.

Howell claims that in fact presidents can “effect policy change outside of a bargaining

framework” (13).

Here, then, lies the book’s strength: it does not simplify its argument by creating a

model that overemphasizes unilateral action; instead, it outlines flexible institutionalconstraints that dynamically allocate freedom for unilateral action only in certain specific

circumstances. The book’s central part consists of an analysis of these constraints. A president

can often overcome congressional constraints because he has an informational advantage over

members of Congress: particularly in foreign and national security affairs, a president can

decide on policies based on intelligence available only to him, whereas the Congress, often left

in the dark, must scramble for pieces of information the president chooses to reveal. In the

domestic arena, transaction costs affect congressional power to challenge executive unilateral

decisions: because members of Congress represent a limited electorate, they must “always

weigh the attendant electoral cost and benefits” (108), limiting the potential of Congress as a

collective decision-making body to influence wide-ranging domestic policy issues. Howell’smodel shows how congressional constraints and direct presidential power run inversely

proportional: the more cohesive Congress is, the less power a president can exert; the more

fragmented Congress is, the more freedom a president holds for unilateral action. But Howell

does not limit his argument to a simplified, one-sided theoretical model: through large data

sets, he finds and discusses numerous exceptions and variations where congressional powers

can effectively limit direct presidential action. In budgetary matters, for example, Congress can

stop funding programs, or it can restrict the ways in which funds are allocated.



A second constraint to presidential power is the courts. Parallel to the chapter on

Congress, Howell analyzes data from a wide range of past political decisions to show the

interdependence between the judicial and the executive branch. Because the judicial branch as

an institution has no executive power, it relies on the executive branch to ensure its authority.

Courts are, then, less likely to interfere with a president’s unilateral actions because their own

authority and legitimacy hinge on the executive branch—should a president ignore or fail toexecute a court’s order, the executive action would undermine the court’s judicial authority. As

Howell summarizes the courts’ quandary in dealing with and constraining direct presidential

action, “judges must pass sentence on the very individual charged with enforcing their rulings”

(173).

As convincing and complete as the model is, Howell outlines a variety of improvements and

shortcomings. While his model considers Congress and the courts as institutional constraints on

presidential action, other groups such as public and interest groups (to whom Congress

members often must pay attention) or autonomous bureaucratic agencies can play a major role

in regulating the processes of direct presidential action and need to be analyzed more closely.

In the end, Power without Persuasion has something to offer to politically interested

nonacademics as well as to academics in political science, rhetoric, and argumentation studies.

To the former, the book opens a window into the intricate processes of policy decision making

and into what takes place in real-world politics behind the often-idealized veil of legislative and

judicial checks and balances. To the latter, the book offers a new perspective on the

deliberative and rhetorical processes that underlie the political system of the United States,

and it offers avenues to explain policy changes that cannot be accounted for with

conventional accounts of presidential power.

4) Irving Janis, Victims of Groupthink (1972)

According to Janis, groupthink stands for an excessive form of concurrence- seeking among

members of high prestige, tightly knit policy-making groups [defined p. 9: “a mode of thinking

that people engage in when they are deeply involved in cohesive in-group, when the

members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise

alternative courses of action”] . It is excessive to the extent that the group members have

come to value the group (and their being part of it) higher than anything else. This causes them

to strive for a quick and painless unanimity on the issues that the group has to confront. To

preserve the clubby atmosphere, group members suppress personal doubts, silence dissenters,

and follow the group leader's suggestions. They have a strong belief in the inherent morality of

the group, combined with a decidedly evil picture of the group's opponents. The results aredevastating: a distorted view of reality, excessive optimism producing hasty and reckless

policies, and a neglect of ethical issues. The combination of these deficiencies makes these

groups particularly vulnerable to initiate or sustain projects that turn out to be policy fiascoes.

Janis's work on groupthink is one of the best-known attempts to illuminate and explain political

decision-making processes using psychological concepts, theories and perspectives. As such it is

part of one among several distinct paradigms in the study of politics and policy analysis.



Janis's work on groupthink has been one of the pioneering studies in this area. At the

time of its publication, it was rare in its broad interdisciplinary (social psychology, political

science, history) approach and its extensive use of comparable case studies outlining the

argument and developing and illustrating the theory. This methodology, as well as Janis's lucid

style, made it appeal to an unusually broad audience, including many political scientists and

international-relations analysis who were otherwise not inclined to consult psychologicalstudies employing strictly experimental methods. Later on, the book was also adopted by

students of organizational behavior and managerial decision-making.

The first part of the book focuses on four case studies of “major political fiascoes”

resulting from poor decisions made during the administrations of four US presidents: FDR

(failure to be prepared for Pearl Harbor attack); Truman (invasion of N. Korea); JFK (Bay of Pigs);

and LBJ (escalation of Vietnam War). “Each of these decisions was a group product, issuing

from a series of meetings from a small body of government officials and advisers who

constituted a cohesive group. In each instance, the members of the policy-making group made

incredibly gross miscalculations about both the practical and moral consequences of their

decisions.”

The book’s second part is a comparative analysis of two case studies of “well worked out

decisions made by similar groups whose members made realistic appraisals of the

consequences: the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Truman administration’s evolution of the

Marhall Plan in 1948. “These two case studies indicate that policy-making groups do not always

suffer the adverse consequences of group processes, that the quality of the group’s decision-

making activities depends upon current conditions that influence the group atmosphere.” Janis

uses secondary sources (memoirs and published documents) to show how the cases can be

viewed as forming a “consistent psychological pattern in light of what is known about group

dynamics.”

Janis highlights the 6 main symptoms of groupthink that led to the afforemetioned

“fiascoes”: limited discussion of alternative courses; failure to reconsider the first course of

action in light of emerging risks and drawbacks; failure to reconsider courses initially deemed

unfavorable; little or no consultation with outside experts; selective bias in response to relevant

judgment from outside critics, media, or experts; and spending little time considering how the

policy might be hindered by such obstacles as bureaucratic inertia, political opponents, or other

possible snags.

Janis does admit that group think is not the only way to produce error and that incertainly does not always lead to failure. Also, it is not his assertion that all cohesive groups

suffer from groupthink. His point is that “the more amiability and esprit de corps among the

members of a policy-making in-group, the greater is the danger that independent critical

thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing

actions directed against out-groups.”



In order to prevent groupthink, offers Janis at the book’s end, it is important that a group

must have a fairly high degree of like-mindedness about basic values and mutual respect and

they must forgo “trying to score points in a power struggle or to obtain ego gratification by

deflating rivals.” Three main proposals include: the leader must ensure each member is a

“critical evaluator” who airs objections and doubts freely and without castigation and the

leader must respect such doubts; the leader should be impartial and not state policypreferences when assigning decision-making tasks; and the organization should refer to several

independent policy-planning and evaluation groups to work on the same policy question.

5) Charles Jones, The Presidency in a Separated System (2005)

Media coverage and popular interpretations of American government typically concentrate

on the presidency. Observers often attribute the fortunes of an entire government to one

person or his small circle of advisers. Jones explains how too exclusive a focus on the

presidency distorts the picture of how national government really works. He explores how

presidents find their place in the permanent government and how they are "fitted in" by

others, most notably those on Capitol Hill. Powerful though it may be, the Oval Office is not the

source of all authority in government.

Jones examines the organizational, political, and procedural challenges facing presidents, as

well as the role of public approval. The author compares the post-World War II presidents and

identifies their strengths and weaknesses in working within a separated system of government.

He explains how (since Clinton) split-party control, differing partisan strategies, and our recent

"narrow-margin politics" have changed the Washington landscape, reshaping relations among

the branches of government. While most have heeded to Jones’s lessons, some ignore them in

favor of perpetuating unrealistic expectations of what presidents can do.

Drawing extensively on the work of others, Jones’s work seeks to explain rather than

investigate as he forges a new synthesis of previous work on the presidency as he argues that

“no single model (especially, the prevailing "presidency-centered, responsible-party

perspective," [p. xii]) is adequate to describe either the presidency or its place in the political

system. Instead, he urges that we look on the presidency as part of a system of appropriately

"separated institutions competing for shares of powers" and thus an intensely variable office (p.

207). One practical effect of such an approach is to reclassify divided government as one of

many flowers that the Constitution allows to bloom, rather than as a weed to be yanked out of

the garden.

The theme of variability in the presidency colors the organization, as well as the contents, of

The Presidency in a Separated System: "There have been ten post-World War II presidents, but

these ten have had many more presidencies" (p. 24) "Presidents will enter the White House

with variable personal, political, and policy advantages or resources," writes Jones. White

House and cabinet organization are "quite personal in nature." Public support is "an elusive

variable." "Lawmaking will vary substantially.... The challenge is to comprehend the variable



role of the president." And Universal reforms are discouraged by a Constitution that allows for

different types of governments." (pp. 24-25, 290). In the course of treating these topics, Jones

returns frequently and at great length to the experiences of every president from Truman to

Bush. There are mini-histories of the post-World War II presidency, presidents, and domestic

public policy imbedded in this book.

Jones takes clear aim at the "presidency-centered, party government perspective" and

proposes an alternative perspective showing that the presidency operates within a competitive

environment structured by a constitutional system of separated powers. Jones helps to widen

the lens of study within the American presidency literature beyond one focal point-the

president or the presidency-to a field that captures the complexities of governing within the

American system.

First, he explicates how under the American constitutional system separationalism and a

government of parties produce a functioning system despite the diffusion of responsibility. The

American system is best thought of as a government in which the principle of separationalism

"was designed as a means of governing, one that promotes competition, multiple legitimacies,

mixed representation, and institutional sharing of power" (23). Allowing the framework of the

Constitution to guide his study, Jones shows the persistent difficulties of governing in a

separated system. Although some political scientists may doubt that this system can produce

effective lawmaking, this study shows that lawmaking does take place.

Secondly, Jones seamlessly merges the presidencies of William J. Clinton and George W.

Bush into his comparative investigation of postwar presidencies. In this way, Jones reinforces

his original claim that despite the inefficiencies produced by a separated system lawmaking still

takes place, showing that the system does indeed work. Six legislative cases from the Clinton-

Bush era are added to the original 28 drawn from David Mayhew's examination of lawmakingfrom 1946 to 1990. Applying examples of lawmaking under the Clinton and Bush

Administrations increases the contextual variation of the study, in turn enhancing our

understanding of the legislative connection between the presidency and Congress. Even during

a period of split-party government and narrow political margins, the cases of Clinton's omnibus

deficit reduction package, welfare reform, and a balanced budget amendment, along with

Bush's tax cuts, education reform, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security

help to show that business of lawmaking does not stop. Legislative stagnation is not inevitable

when governing in a separated system.

6) Sidney Milkis, The President and the Parties (1993)

Milkis argues that FDR’s party leadership and his New Deal mark the product of efforts

begun in the Progressive Era to loosen the grip of partisan politics on the councils of power,

with a view to strengthen the national administrative agencies and extend the programmatic

commitments of the federal government. The party system featured a constitutional



arrangement that led to legislative supremacy and constraints on the president’s administrative

power. In order to weaken this and realize their goal of having a national political power with

expansive programmatic capabilities in the executive branch, progressives had to either weaken

or re-construct the party system.

Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson started this trend as they both sought to usethe presidency as an office of national leadership and political and social reform, turning away

from traditional partisan organizations as vehicles for campaigning and shaping national policy.

They struggled against the constraints of party leadership and contributed to the rise of the

modern executive who would rely on the executive office and the national bureaucracy (rather

than the party) to fulfill political and governmental tasks. FDR’s long reign helped to institute

this shift from party politics to administrative politics by articulating a public philosophy and

overseeing institutional changes that ushered in an “administrative republic,” a polity in which

control over programs and policies of the national bureaucracy became a major part of modern

American politics.

Milkis traces the legacy of Roosevelt’s “revolution” through the presidency of George

H.W. Bush showing that executive branch use of the bureaucracy to effect public policy existed

regardless of the president’s party or philosophy. Parties became sidelined as modern

presidential power made them less important - they loss their identity as a collective

organization with a firm mission statement and instead became defined by presidential politics

and governance. The presidency grew stronger while parties and “valued representative

insiutions” that helped cultiave a connection between government and society were dwarfed

by the power executive figure. “The fragile state of modern executive leadership reflects the

frayed link between the government and society, a crisis of citizenship that represents the most

pressing challenge as America approaches the twenty-first century,” write Milkis.

The President and the Parties is the first text to examine closely the association between

the chief executive and the two-party system. Placing parties in a broad historical context and

shedding light on their connection to other parts of the American political system, Sidney Milkis

argues that, beginning with the New Deal, reforms intended to liberate the chief executive from

the shackles of partisan politics only weakened an already fragile relationship, isolating

presidents from what was once popular and institutional support from their parties. This

comprehensive analysis covers a broad range of issues and events, including FDR's 1938

"Purge" of the Democratic Party, The Executive Reorganization Act of 1939, the legacy of

Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and the triumph of executive centralization during the Reagan

"Revolution." By providing a unique perspective on the elements of American government,Milkis offers new insights into the decline of the party system and the process that fashioned a

stronger, more active national state, but one lacking in vital representative institutions capable

of common deliberation and choice. Placing the issue in contemporary perspective, he warns of

the challenges ahead for a nation struggling to repair its frayed connection between

government and people.



7) Terry Moe, "The Politicized Presidency," in John Chubb and Paul Peterson, The New

Direction in American Politics (1985)

This chapter demonstrates how the administrative agencies and bureaucracies of the

presidency have shifted toward a more politicized nature due mainly to efforts by presidents tostreamline their policies and bypass the legislative process by appointing partisan loyalists to

jobs that were traditional held by neutral bureaucrats. This effort started with the Budget and

Accounting Act of 1921 which created the Bureau of Budget to ease executive communication

with Congress over budgetary issues. Later, FDR came into office with a dedication to

significant social change and used the Bureau to change the institutional suture of the executive

branch and start pushing his policies. Under FDR the bureau grew from 40 to 500 employees

and many of them were considered ideologically loyal in order to "promote political

responsiveness, change bureaucratic decision criteria from within, and facilitate the smooth

operation" of the executive branch.

Future presidents followed the lead of FDR in an effort to further take hold of the

administrative machinery of government and politicize administrative arrangements and

centralize policy-related concerns in the WH. Nixon and Regan especially continued the trend,

as frustrations with achieving policy goals led to attempting to achieve programmatic ends

through bureaucratic control. Both presidents wanted "partisans located deep within the

established democracy, even if expertise was lacking." Especially the OMB became the hub for

this politicization as Regan especially intertwined policy initiatives with budgetary strategy.

Moe also describes in detail some of the logic behind this shift in the institutional shape of

the executive branch. He notes that "individual choices create institutions, but institutions

condition individual choices," in his illustration of how presidents attempt to initiate changes toinherited institutional arraignments they are unhappy with. However, the president is greatly

bound by a larger institutional structure that greatly limits what he can do and he is also limited

by time constraints: 4-8 years is not enough time to revamp the whole system and presidents

need the timely "responsive competence" of loyal bureaucrats as opposed to the "neutral

competence" of trained professionals. On top of public and political pressure, the president is

"burdened by expectations that far exceed his capacity for effective action, and he has strong

incentives to right the imbalances by reforming and elaborating the institutional presidency."

The desire to quickly enact policies and re-structure the institutions to fit his needs combined

with time and political pressures led to this politicization of the executive branch.

political parties • • • downs, an

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