Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal

by Stephen Skowronek

MP3 CD Format Presidential Leadership in Political Time has greatly expanded our understanding of and debates over the politics of leadership. It clarifies the typical political problems that presidents confront in political time, as well as the likely effects of their working through them, and considers contemporary innovations in our political system that bear on the leadership patterns from the more distant past. Drawing out parallels in the politics of leadership between Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt and between James Polk and John Kennedy, it develops a new and revealing perspective on the presidential leadership of Clinton, Bush, and Obama.In this edition, Skowronek devotes a new chapter to Obama's presidency and its prospects for becoming transformational—like the presidencies of Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan, all of whom succeeded to varying degrees in reconstructing the playing field of national politics. Along the way, he wonders if this kind of leadership is still even possible, given the current divided state of the American polity. He also takes a fresh look at the impact of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, of a more disciplined and homogeneous Republican party, of conservative advocacy of the "unitary theory" of the executive, and of progressive disillusionment with the presidency as an institution.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Grad School, American History, Political Science, Academic

272 pages, Paperback

Published January 30, 2020

About the author

Stephen Skowronek is the Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political and Social Science at Yale University.

Reviews

[Violet Wexler · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was not fun (or easy) to read in two days. Buuuuut it is an amazing book. While Skowronek requires you to reread every line multiple times — and deals with increasingly complicated concepts — his theory is fascinating and he makes a very compelling argument that it can help us judge presidents and predict future electoral outcomes or outcomes of presidential performance. This book shifted the way I think abt the presidency and its concepts will definitely stay with me as I think abt trump and future presidents !!!

[Jeff Rowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been conditioned to think about presidential politics in terms of the individual merits and personalities of each particular president. Good things happen when we have good presidents and bad things happen otherwise. Skowronek makes a pretty good case that there are more powerful forces at work here. These forces are more or less dictated by the unique American system of government ruled by large political parties. The idea is that the president's ability to govern is based upon two powers: power granted by the constitution, and power granted by legitimacy. In practice, limits on presidential power are almost always constrained by legitimacy. According to Skowronek, this leads to repeating political cycles he calls political time. The effectiveness of a president then, can roughly be described as where that president happens to be located in the political time cycle. The examples of the disjunctive/reconstructive president pairs are very convincing: Adams/Jefferson, J.Q. Adams/Jackson, Buchanan/Lincoln, Hoover/FDR and Carter Reagan. This edition focuses upon the modern presidencies and how they fit into the political time thesis. It sure explains a lot. Obama isn't mentioned but he fits Skowronek's scheme pretty well too considering how there continue to be so many questions about his legitimacy, and how he has embraced and owned some of the Republican's moderate positions on foreign policy and spending. It was really great to read this in the middle of the crazy 2016 primary season because it lets me speculate for myself about what each of these candidates represents. It's seems pretty clear that Trump's success is a symptom of the fracturing of the GOP on factional lines, where neither Cruz, Rubio, Kasich or Carson can get a majority of voters to support them. Clinton is the classic disruptive candidate who has embraced plenty of moderately conservative positions. Really, really fascinating.

[David Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trying to make sense of history, we are gratified when clear patterns emerge to explain recurring phenomena. Patterns of repeating political climates offer a useful guide for evaluating Presidential performance and anticipating what comes next.

Skowronek's model is convincing, particularly as applied to the administrations of Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. The arc of these presidencies neatly exemplifies his categories of an enervated regime, a revolutionary reconstruction, orthodox innovation, and preemption. Looking back across history, most American Presidents appear to fit into these types, and parallels can be drawn in the types of challenges they faced.

What puzzles me, and makes me wonder if Skowronek's thesis is still valid, is the present political situation. I am unsure of how I would classify Obama's administration in this scheme, given his reconstructive intentions and the sheer stubborness of the opposition's defiance. Reconstructive presidents have historically been highly effective, but Obama's effectiveness has been blunted from its potential because the old regime still holds key levers of power. Where Obama fits, I think, depends greatly on the aftermath of the 2016 election.

[Alex Brandstetter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve known about Skowronek’s model since 2021, and I found it to be incredibly profound, showing that presidents aren’t necessarily standalone and that they follow a pattern that’s been mostly durable since the 1800s.

As it pertains to modern presidencies, even though he posed the idea of perpetual preemption that could bring the country into chaos with presidents trying to undo their predecessors’ work, I don’t know that we’re there yet. I do think we still follow Skowronek’s model, though it would require some deep-diving to fully understand. It also gives me optimism that perhaps American democracy isn’t under the threat that many are suggesting (though it’s all dependent on which direction the people decide to push it).

Skowronek brings up possibilities characterizing Obama and Trump’s presidencies, and depending on how you view them, it can determine where we are in political time. There were hints that perpetual preemption might be rising when Al Gore almost beat W. Bush and Hillary Clinton almost beat Trump, but the fact that Bush and Trump won showed the model to be resilient. Aside from that, since “perpetual preemption” didn’t materialize, it’s fair to describe Obama as preemptive and Trump as disjunctive that would suggest (and this may be a shocker to some) that Biden is reconstructive and forming a coalition of a “New Left” regime.

Obama was incredibly charismatic with strong rhetoric of “change,” but it was probably never his place and time to transform American politics (perhaps if he ran later, it might have been). This reminds me of Wilson who was his contemporary in the past. Wilson was an orator, but he couldn’t fully dislodge Lincoln’s Republican coalition, just as Obama couldn’t fully dislodge the coalition founded by Reagan. Unlike opposition leaders of the past, Obama was able to get his signature policy through (the ACA), but his party’s abysmal performance in the 2010 midterms was a “strike back” of Reagan’s coalition, proving it to still be durable. Similar to how the Republican-majority Senate of 1919 refused to help ratify the Treaty of Versailles, something supported by Wilson, the 2016 Republican Senate stymied Obama’s presidential prerogative of nominating a Supreme Court justice after the death of Justice Scalia.

Typically following second preemptions/opposition leaders, someone emerges in the dominant coalition who’s an outsider and who challenges the status quo in the regime’s disjunction (like Hoover and Carter in their respective regimes). That person was Trump who held positions unorthodox from Republicans who served for 36 years before him. While he had reconstructive ambitions, there has never been a “reconstruction from within”, and he faced opposition from the “old guard” who attempted, and failed, to prevent him from winning the nomination and his brand of conservatism becoming the dominant view in the party. In doing so, he was put in a position where either repudiating or affirming the orthodoxy would spur greater opposition to him which is what happened. A Republican trifecta passed tax cuts, but there was internal opposition to his promises of delivering infrastructure and “repealing and replacing Obamacare with something better” because the old guard wasn’t interested in government spending and risking angering their base, similar to Carter’s failed attempt at public works legislation. Republicans lost the House in 2018, and when met with the crisis of the pandemic, like Carter (Iran hostage crisis) and Hoover (the Great Depression), Trump lacked the political capital or will to meet the crisis. Lastly, Trump and his supporters’ attempt to try and overturn the duly-elected government may have seemed unconscionable in American society, but it’s an example of a historical pattern of a disjunctive, dying regime taking a last-ditch effort and gasp to retain power in the face of an insurgent political movement and coalition.

Skowronek suggested that a loss for Trump in 2020 potentially would indicate a political time reset and a new reconstruction. This is what happened, and Biden worked to unite Democratic party, seen in making policy concessions and offering cabinet positions to his opponents in exchange for their endorsements to win the nomination. He even brought Republicans like Mitt Romney, John Kasich, and Colin Powell to vote for him in the general election, cementing the “new coalition” that reconstructions bring together. He was able to keep his party together, passing the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act, and brought some Republicans over to support other legislation (infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, gun safety, Respect for Marriage Act, etc). Since he was elected, Democrats outperformed expectations in the vast majority of special elections (especially post-Dobbs) and the 2023 general elections as well as blocked a highly-expected red wave in 2022.

Should Skowronek’s model be right, in spite of abysmal poll numbers for Biden, it’s expected for Biden to win re-election. It appears, too, as though Donald Trump is the presumptive front runner on the GOP side, but Nikki Haley sticking in that primary race is, seemingly, to cause disaffection among right-leaning independents who are showing up to support her against Trump and who will likely show up in the general election to oppose Trump once again. It should be interesting to watch and see if Skowronek’s model still materializes in this upcoming election…

[Salem Strawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is 16 years old as my reading of it. However, all the issues that the author hoped to change are still at issue and even worse now. America is fiscally irresponsible. We as a country to spend less and tax more. David Walker will convince you of that in his still revenant book.

[Gordon Kwok · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book and the thesis that the author puts forth about the exercise of presidential power. Even though the book is a series of essays that tally about 150 pages, I will say this topic is one of the most difficult books I have read across all subject matters. I would recommend this book for those who are interested in studying presidential power and just has interest in the presidency, otherwise it'll probably be a little on the dry side.