Political
Science 308,
Summer
2015
Bill
Newmann
Jeri
Newmann
My
office is 318 Founders Hall. I’m not
going to have regular office hours.
Since we’ll see each other four days a week, we can talk after class or make
an appointment when we see each other in class.
E-mail:
wnewmann@vcu.edu
Newmann's home page
with links to other course syllabi (http://www.people.vcu.edu/~wnewmann)
Links to the
Presidency that will be useful or interesting (some might even be
both).
Polls and Sites with Electoral College
Charts
·
Gallup Poll Index (with
topics indexed)
·
Gallup
Presidential Election Center
·
Congressional
Quarterly Poll Tracker
Sites
with Excellent non-partisan political coverage
·
Real Clear Politics links to articles from
everywhere
·
Politico comprehensive coverage of political events
Possibly the three most
important sites that exist (These examine claims made by politicians, candidates, and pundits. Are they true or are they half-truths, or are
they complete lies. It also checks media
stories and official pronouncements of the president and congress)
·
Fact Check.Org
From the
Reference
·
270 to Win (info on presidential
elections)
·
Dave Leip’s
Atlas of US Presidential Elections info on every US presidential election and more
·
Statistical
Abstract of the United States (US
Census Bureau compilation of statistics on social and economic conditions in
the US)
·
Charts
on Presidential Approval Ratings (from
Wall Street Journal; composites of several polling organizations)
Introduction
The presidency is a huge topic. Recognizing this, the
course will take a sweeping look at the US Presidency, arguably the single most
powerful office in the history of the planet. Getting a handle on the
presidency is a difficult, if not impossible job. Probably the best way to
start learning about the subject is to think of the US presidency as the nexus of
three streams: (1) the times -- the ebb and flow of American political culture,
national trends, and international historical forces; (2) the presidency -- the
office and powers of the institution as it has evolved from the US Constitution
to the media-focused, celebrity Presidency of the 1980s and 1990s; and (3) The president -- the character, vision,
strengths and weaknesses of the man or woman who occupies the Oval Office. As
these three streams come together the political history of the nation is shaped. The US has been called a "Presidential
Nation." It is in the office of the presidency where the US people have
decided to place power time and again. In the historical grappling for power
between the president and Congress the US people have continually sided with
the president. It is the place where we look for leadership, and direction. The
person who occupies that office is given a stature like no other. (Has anyone
seen any monuments to senators or representatives?) The president gets too much
credit when things go well and too much blame when things go wrong. For better
or worse, the president has become the embodiment of the nation, and therefore,
his or her character, personal habits and infirmities become the stuff of
national obsession, and national security. (During the 1980s, the polyps on
Ronald Reagan's colon received more media attention than the workings of the
Federal Reserve.)
The office of the president is the repository of the
greatest powers in the land, not just in terms of physical power (the authority
to use military force, even nuclear weapons), but moral power -- the ability to
shift the ethical standards of a nation and to influence, if not define, the
national mood. Our presidential elections often focus on issues of personal character,
not issues of economic, social or foreign policy. We seem to be choosing not
simply someone to run the country, but someone to represent us -- half-prime
minister, half-monarch. Our choices see to depend on the national mood.
One of the key issues in the study of the presidency
focuses on what really accounts for presidential decisions. Those who have an institutional perspective
believe that the president is no match for the political pressures of congress,
the political environment, and the American people. He responds to them in ways that try to
preserve his power by using his own institutional powers. Every president will
react roughly the same to the same institutional forces. The other perspective, often called the
persuasion or bargaining model, sees leadership of the president as the key
determinant of decisions. The president
matters -- his character, his leadership style, his political skills.
This is the central point we should focus on: Is it
possible for a president to "succeed" in "modern" times?
What do I mean by "succeed?" It is best to take ideological judgments
out of the definition of success. We should not try to define success
subjectively -- in terms of individual political goals that those on one side
or the other of the political spectrum might have, such as reducing poverty
through government action or shrinking the size of the welfare state. Using
these notions as the judgment of success would lead to endless debate about the
purposes of government from a partisan point of view. We’ll probably have a
little bit of that, but we don't want it to dominate the course. It is better
to try for some scholarly objectivity, by defining success in the following
manner -- did the president achieve what he set out to do? Whether you, as an
individual, shared the goals of one president or another, is irrelevant to this
question. Analytically, the focus should be upon how successful was any
president in attaining the goals that he sets for himself.
By the "modern" presidency I refer to the
presidency as it has been defined since Franklin Roosevelt. It is FDR who, with
the help of national crises of the Depression and WW II, transformed the
presidency into the focus of power that it is today. He also raised
expectations so high that it is doubtful that any president can meet those
expectations for any length of time. Can the job be done? That is what we will
focus on during the course of the semester. We will examine the powers of the
presidency, the men who have held the office and the shifting demands that our
political culture places on both the office and the individual.
Some of the issues we will discuss include: The
Presidency and the Constitution; Presidential Character; The Roosevelt
Revolution; "The Personal Presidency;" Presidential Management
Styles; Bureaucracy, Organizations, and Presidential Power; The "Imperial
Presidency" and Foreign Policy; The White House Staff and its power;
Watergate and the abuse of power; The post-Watergate Presidency; The Reagan
Revolution; The President and the media; Presidential Campaigns; Expectations
of the President; Image making; Shifting Coalitions in Presidential Voting; Red
and Blue America; And more, other issues you might bring up.
Texts: You need to read them; you don't need to buy them.
There is a lot of reading for this course, but it is fun reading. I've tried to
keep the dry political science textbook style to a minimum. I've assigned
mostly journalistic accounts that are entertaining and educational.
The
books are available at the Virginia Book Company (intersection of Shafer and
Franklin) and the VCU Bookstore. Some of them may be found also at the large
chain bookstores in town (Borders, Barnes and Noble). You might find them there
at a discount. If anyone has problems getting access to the texts, for any
reason, let me know as soon as possible so you don't get too far behind in the
reading. You may find these texts other places; be sure you get an edition of
the text that includes everything that is in the edition I have assigned. Some
of these books have been placed on reserve.
Assigned
Texts:
Grading
System: Grades will be determined
through the following:
|
Exam
1 |
June
29 |
20% |
|
Exam
2 |
July
2 |
20% |
|
Exam
3 |
July
9 |
20% |
|
Exam
4 |
July
20 |
20% |
|
Exam
5 |
July
25 |
20% |
Grading scale: I use a typical
scale: A = 90-100; B = 80-89; C = 70-79; D = 55-69.
EXAMS: Below you’ll see on line Review Sheets below this
paragraph. This review sheet should be used as your study guide for the exam.
The review sheet will include some terms that are from the readings only, so
that you can go back and review those items from the readings. These review
sheets are based on what I think we’ll do in the class because of time and
maybe just things we discuss in class that I didn’t intend to discuss, the
review sheets may change slightly before the exam (no more than 10%) and I will
make sure that you know if I change anything.
I’ll give plenty of leeway if I do.
Generally, it will be eliminating terms, not adding them. The third exam
may have additions if we get farther than I planned. They’ll have asterisks in
front of them. Once you have the review sheet, feel free to ask me questions
about the terms. This is the best way to study for the exam. If you understand
the terms on the review sheet, you can define each one and see how each one
relates to the larger concepts and issues we've discussed in class, you should
do just fine on the exam. The exams will consist of short
answer/identifications and one essay. I will give more details on the exams in
class as we approach the first exam.
COURSE AND RE
(page numbers are included as
necessary; if there are no page numbers, it means read the entire
chapter)
Day
1: June 22: Introduction
Day
2: June 23: Origins of the
Presidency
Shogan,
Chapter 2, Father Figure.
Day
3: June 24: Pre-Modern Presidency
Shogan,
Chapter 3, A Vapor of Duplicity
Day 4:
June 25: Weak Presidents and
Crisis Leadership
Shogan,
Chapter 4, In Search of Crisis.
Exam 1: June 29
(after class, on material in Review
I, Introduction, Constitution, Pre-Modern Presidents (Washington to
Wilson)
Day
5: June 29: The Depression and
FDR
Greenstein, Chapter 2, The Virtuosic Leadership of
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Day 6: June 30: FDR and the Modern Presidency
Greenstein, Chapter 3, The Uneven Leadership of
Harry Truman
Day 7: July 1:
Eisenhower Manages the Chaos
Greenstein, Chapter 4, The Unexpected Eisenhower
Day 8: Exam 2: July 2 (During class, on material in Review
II, FDR to Eisenhower)
Day 9: July 6: JFK, LBJ
and The Politics of Persuasion
Greenstein,
Chapter 5, Coming to Terms with Kennedy
Day
10: July 7: The Rise and Fall of
Richard Nixon
Greenstein,
Chapter 6, Lyndon B. Johnson and the Primacy of Politics
Day 11: July 8: Nixon and The Post-Watergate, Post-Vietnam
Presidency
Greenstein,
Chapter 7, The Paradox of Richard Nixon
Exam 3: July 9 (after class, on material from Review
III, JFK to Nixon)
Day
12 July 9: The Aftermath of
Watergate
Greenstein,
Chapter 8, The Instructive Presidency of Gerald Ford
Day
13: July 13: Return of the Weak Presidency:
Carter and Ford
Greenstein,
Chapter 9, Jimmy Carter and the Politics of Rectitude
Day
14: July 14: The Reagan Revolution
Greenstein, Chapter 10, Ronald Reagan: The Innocent
as Agent of Change
Day
15: July 15: The Reagan Realignment
Greenstein, Chapter 11, The Highly Tactical
Leadership of George H. W. Bush
Day
16: July 16: Into the Wacky 1990s
Exam 4: July 20 (after class, on material
in Review
IV, Ford/Carter to Bush 41)
Day 17: July 20: From Clinton’s Impeachment to the New Crisis
Presidency
Greenstein, Chapter 12, The Undisciplined Bill
Clinton
Day 18: July 21: The Bush Presidency and the Rise of the New Imperial Presidency
Greenstein, Chapter 13,
George W. Bush and the Politics of Agenda Control
Day 19: July 22: The Drama of Obama
Greenstein,
Chapter 14, The Presidential Breakthrough of Barack Obama
Exam
5: July 25 (On material from Review V,
Clinton to Obama)