The power of words: the changing role of the Italian head of state during the Second Republic

Many authors use the metaphor of an accordion to describe the enlargement of the constitutional functions of the Italian head of state: because of the weakness of the political parties the president is able to ‘open and play the accordion’ according to his own interpretation of his institutional powers. While useful, this metaphor does not take into account the structural changes that have occurred over the last 30 years, as well as the informal powers that recent presidents have resorted to, which were the most important factors in the metamorphosis of the presidential figure. Structural changes include the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the First Republic and the mediatisation and personalisation of politics and party structure. Informal powers include those of ‘esternazione’ (a term that roughly means ‘to render public personal statements without previous consultation with the cabinet’) and of moral suasion. By analysing the development of these two powers, this article aims to describe the changing role of the head of state during the Second Republic. It also defines a typology of presidential moral suasion, which is proposed as a useful tool to analyse presidential style and strategy in influencing law-making. The analysis of the innovative use of communicative powers by the last two presidents, Ciampi and Napolitano, shows how the transformation of the Italian presidency can probably be considered permanent.     

Presidential Influence Over the Systemic Agenda

One of the most widely accepted sources of presidential power is agenda setting. Being able to affect the media's agenda on key issues–influencing the systemic agenda and expanding the scope of conflict–has enormous consequences for the president's ability to govern effectively. Yet the literature to date has not conclusively determined the extent to which presidents consistently set agendas, especially over the media, because it has not explicitly considered variation in agenda setting influence by policy type. For these reasons, we test whether presidential public statements have increased the media's attention to three policy areas. Using Vector Autoregression (VAR) analysis, we demonstrate that presidents have some influence over the systemic agenda, at least in the short term, with policy type being an important predictor of presidential influence. Understanding when and why presidents may or may not be successful agenda setters is crucial to explaining the varying legislative impacts of presidential speech making.     

Public Presidential Appeals and Congressional Floor Votes: Reassessing the Constitutional Threat

The assertion that public appeals by presidents can create electoral threats to noncompliant members of Congress is central to arguments about the value of "going public" as a legislative strategy. Although recent scholarship suggests a link between popular presidential rhetoric and the likelihood of bill passage, researchers have yet to examine the impact of public presidential appeals on individual legislators. This study examines the logic of electoral threats imposed by going public. We test whether a president's going public with increased intensity leads individual members of Congress to increase their support for presidential preferences on congressional floor votes. We employ several measures to assess the intensity of presidents' public appeals, including domestic speeches, nationally televised addresses, and speeches in legislators' home states. Several logistic regression models are tested to determine whether congressional support for presidential preferences on the floor is influenced by the interaction between members' electoral vulnerability and presidents' use of popular appeals. The findings suggest that presidential speechmaking has very little impact on the likelihood that members of Congress will support the president's position on roll call votes. We argue that this suggests a necessary revision of criticisms of the "rhetorical presidency." Public presidential appeals do not seem to present a considerable threat to a constitutional order that is predicated on congressional autonomy and deliberation.     

Theorizing Presidential Tenure: The Difficult Case of FDR's Fourth Term

This article examines Franklin Delano Roosevelt's pursuit of a fourth term in 1944, despite the significant erosion of his physical health beginning in late 1943. Not only did Roosevelt pursue a fourth term against long odds that he would not survive it, but he put little effort into the selection and policy education of Vice President Truman. This pursuit of a fourth term is critical to debates over presidential tenure, and particularly evaluations of the 22nd Amendment, which since 1951 has limited presidents to two terms. It is a "difficult case," however, because despite obvious miscalculations on the part of FDR and his advisors in 1944– which reinforce arguments of term limits proponents–a two term limit would have prevented a third term for Roosevelt as well, thereby depriving the nation of his experienced leadership in a time of war, especially in the crucial early years of the war. The article concludes by supporting the existing two term limitation which, despite its faults, effectively addresses problems of long presidential tenure while also providing periodic renewals of leadership.     

Editorial: The Sympathetic Agnostic: Britain's Next Prime Minister

Abstract

This essay engages the "politics of vision" as a potential template for choosing future presidents. The rhetoric of "vision" is drawn from theological precepts that are grounded in prophetic and transformational discourses. The current politics of popularity, and the reality show atmosphere that surrounds presidential elections, have not held the nation in good stead. We labor under the myth of our own goodness and believe that it doesn't matter who runs the nation, since the balance of power between the branches of government, and a free activist press will protect us from our own bad choices. Recent history proves that we must pay more attention to the criteria by which individuals are selected, because twenty-first-century high stakes political strategies can neutralize even the best laid plans of the nation's founders. To analyze the criteria for selecting future presidents, I turn to the work of writer/activist James Baldwin, theologian/activist William Stringfellow, and ethicist/politician Barbara Jordan. They conclude that vision does not require a crystal ball, just prophetic discourse and moral responsibility. The next President of the United States should be a spiritually mature truth-teller, whose vision for America is congruent with the hopes and dreams of a weary electorate.     

Presidential Speeches and the Stages of the Legislative Process

Presidents go public frequently to increase their success in Congress. Yet scholars know little about when presidents speak within the legislative process or why. If presidential speeches are indeed a source of power for presidents, then presidents are likely to use them throughout the legislative process, not speak only to affect final passage. We argue that presidents speak generally to meet broad electoral and political goals, but target speeches according to their goals at each stage of the legislative process: to frame the debate at the agenda-setting stage, to push bills out of committee, and to finalize support from legislators at the roll call stage. We analyze 116 bills between 1989 and 2004, supplemented by Bush Library archival data and a case study of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. The results illustrate that presidents speak mostly at the agenda-setting and roll call stages and presidential attention at each stage varies by informational cues provided by the larger political environment.     

The Blue Slip: A Theory of Unified and Divided Government, 1979–2009

In recent years, the role of presidential candidates in constructing their own coalitions to secure both the nomination and election has increased as their reliance on their own party organization has decreased. Recent presidents also have devoted more of their energies to building coalitions crucial to the adoption of their program and its policies. Yet in this era of entrepreneurial candidacy, presidential effectiveness has varied considerably. This article suggests that the extent of convergence and divergence of presidential selection and governing coalitions determines presidential effectiveness. It is also suggested that the roots of presidential governing effectiveness lie in the electoral core coalition, the product of the nomination and general election coalitions that supported the presidential candidate. The article (1) describes the developments that make this theory of presidential coalition-building pertinent to the recent presidency, and (2) sketches the theory and illustrates its applicability to Richard Nixon's sponsorship of the Family Assistance Plan.     

The Politics of Credit in Presidential Signing Statements

The separation of powers often makes it difficult to understand who is responsible for legislative outcomes. Both members of Congress and presidents seek to shape perceptions of policy responsibility to their advantage. Yet, the relative size of the president's rhetorical stage gives him disproportionate influence in molding these discussions at critical moments. Given these circumstances, how, when, and why, do presidents claim credit for themselves and attribute credit to members of Congress for legislation? Using an original dataset based upon a content analysis of all presidential signing statements from 1985–2008, we find that presidential strategies to claim and attribute credit for laws are greatly impacted by both political context (approval, divided government, midterm elections, and party power) and bill-specific attributes (appropriations, salience, and veto threats). The theory and results highlight the importance of taking multiple institutions into account when thinking about credit.     

President Versus Congress: The Struggle for Public Attention

Power relationships between the executive and legislative branches in the United States are affected by the nature and shape of public opinion. Both branches actively seek the stamp of popular approval but the President has advantages in the struggle for public attention that are vital in the exercise of his powers. Television, in the coverage it gives to presidential activities and pseudo-activities, provides the President with an opportunity to move and lead the nation. Although we are a nation of shared powers, television projects the message that we are a presidential nation and that message is affecting both popular perceptions and power relationships on the national level.     

Executive Branch Management and Presidential Unilateralism: Centralization and the Issuance of Executive Orders

Despite the useful simplifying assumptions of recent work on unilateral power, archival analysis shows the issuance of executive orders is a process rife with transaction costs as presidents bargain with the bureaucracy over formulating their scope and substance. As a result, presidents must create what Williamson (1985) called “governance structures” to minimize those costs, with the Office of Management and Budget's clearance process at its heart. As with legislative policy formulation, presidents assert more centralized control over executive orders (EO) production on items that affect large numbers of departments, on matters of executive reorganization, and on significant matters. Political contexts are trumped by managerial concerns. Orders dealing with implementation of recently passed statutes or other presidential “clerkship” functions tend to follow a far less centralized formulation process.     

The Best of Times and the Worst of Times: Polarization and Presidential Success in Congress

For better or for worse, presidents receive much of the credit and much of the blame for their legislative success in Congress. Indeed, much has been written about the correlates of presidential success in Congress. In this article, we test the proposition that presidential success in Congress is mainly a function of context and the context of presidential interactions with Congress has changed over the past 50 years. Specifically, it is both the best of times and worst of times for presidential relations with the legislative branch. It is increasingly the case that because of partisan polarization in Washington, presidents can be quite successful, if they command a majority. However, if they face a divided government gridlock is the result and overcoming that gridlock has gotten to be more difficult over time.     

The Presidency and Political Equality

When black Americans and white Americans want the president to do different things, who wins? When low-income earners prefer different government action than do middle and high-income earners, whose preferences are reflected in presidential behavior? Recent studies show that congressional behavior often most closely follows the preferences of the white and the wealthy, but we know relatively little about presidential behavior. Since the president and Congress make policy together, it is important to understand the extent of political equality in presidential behavior. We examine the degree to which presidents have provided equal representation to these groups over the past four decades. We compare the preferences of these groups for federal spending in various budget domains to presidents’ subsequent budget proposals in those domains from 1974 to 2010. Over this period, presidents’ proposals aligned more with the preferences of whites and high-income earners. However, Republican presidents are driving this overall pattern. Democratic presidents represent racial and income groups equally, but Republicans’ proposals are much more consistent with the spending preferences of whites and high-income earners. This pattern of representation reflects the composition of the president's party coalition and the spending preferences of groups within the party coalition.     

In Retreat from Excellence: The Single Six-Year Presidential Term

Analysis of the effects of the single, six-year term proposal by assessing its probable impact on presidential tenure in the past reveals that it would have reduced the tenure of highly regarded presidents who were relatively successful in dealing with Congress and increased the tenure of presidents with lackluster reputations and limited success in congressional relations. Thus, by inference, the adoption of this widely-touted institutional reform might undermine rather than strengthen presidential leadership in American politics.     

The President and the Public: Inaugural Addresses in American History

This article examines presidential inaugural addresses to gain a perspective on the changing relationship between the people and the presidency throughout American political history. The analysis suggests three distinct models of inaugural address—constitutional, party, and plebiscitary—each articulating a different understanding of presidential leadership and the relationship between the presidency and the people. The constitutional presidents see themselves largely as restrained, constitutional officers with a minimal relationship to the people. The party model yields a role for the president which is more tied to the people's will, especially as expressed through party. Even though tied more strongly to the public, party presidents recognize constitutional limits on their roles and powers. Plebiscitary presidents often eschew party affiliation and the guise of constrained constitutional officer, and cast themselves as engines of the American political system fully tied to public opinion. Plebiscitary presidents often make few references to other political actors or to the Constitution. Beyond helping us to better understand the contours of American political development, this analysis challenges the prevalent assumption in studies of the presidency that nineteenth-century presidents were not popular or “public” leaders.     

Presidential Appeals to Moral Foundations: How Modern Presidents Persuade Cross‐Ideologues

Many assume that modern presidents cannot persuade cross‐ideologues to support their policy proposals. The idea that a conservative would support a liberal policy advocated by a cross‐partisan president seems ludicrous. However, recent research suggests that conservatives will support liberal policies that are framed consistent with moral foundations. Using a national survey experiment that carefully manipulates the actual text of a speech given by President Obama, this article demonstrates that fairness frames in presidential speeches motivate liberal policy support among conservative, moderate, and liberal Americans who value fairness.     

Passing Nonincremental Policy: Presidential Influence in Congress,Kennedy to Carter

This article represents an important step in understanding early, modern presidents’ strategic use of signing statements by taking a sharp focus on the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. In contrast to recent presidents who have used the instrument increasingly to challenge legislative provisions, Eisenhower's use of signing statements was rather complex—from political credit-claiming, explaining the provisions of bills to the American public, and reinforcing his views on the federal-state balance of power—to maintaining bipartisan relations on foreign policy, shaping implementation of congressional bills, and selectively criticizing Congress for overspending. The theoretical framework devotes particular attention to the interplay of contexts—electoral, institutional, and economic—on Eisenhower's use of signing statements by policy area across his two terms.     

“Going Public” Reconsidered: Reagan's 1981 Tax and Budget Cuts,and Revisionist Theories of Presidential Power

This paper examines the thesis of the public presidency. In light of the success of Ronald Reagan, many revisionist scholars have criticized traditional models of presidential politics. Whereas traditional views emphasized the bargaining presidency, these recent scholars now argue that, today, the politics of rhetoric dominate the politics of bargaining. This paper examines the central case study of the going-public model, Reagan's 1981 tax and budget cuts, a critical case because it represents Reagan's central legislative success and because many scholars and pundits have credited this success to Reagan's frequent televised public appeals. The case reveals that a strong bargaining dynamic played a part in the 1981 process, and that going public strategies were not as dominant as previously thought.

What has changed significantly is the balance of incentives and constraints that influence strategic choice and the kinds of politicians in the Oval Office who make them. Contemporary presidents, after carefully considering their options, will choose going public over bargaining more often than did their predecessors.

–Samuel Kernell, Going Public     

The President and the Environment: A Reinterpretation of Neustadt's Theory of Presidential Leadership

Neustadt's theory of presidential leadership is conventionally viewed as based on a model of the Bargaining President, in which presidents focus on twisting arms and trading favors rather than on making public appeals. However, Neustadt's theory has a deeper logic—the logic of strategic choice, in which both effective bargaining and rhetorical appeals are techniques of presidential persuasion enabled by a President's choices. This reinterpretation of Neustadt's theory is supported by an original case study of President George H.W. Bush's leadership on the 1990 Clean Air Act. The President presented an initiative in a manner that capitalized on the public mood and he made key strategic choices aimed at persuading congressional leaders to engage with his administration in a non-zero sum game to enact a law that served their mutual policy and political interests. Rhetorical appeals were few in number. Quid pro quo bargaining played a limited role.     

Identifying the Critical Members of the House of Representatives

This article combines the historical record of presidential-congressional relations with previous scholarly findings to develop a model that identifies the members of Congress whose support is critical to the president's ability to build enacting coalitions. It then analyzes the relationship between President Obama and the House of Representatives during the 113th Congress as a case study that demonstrates the model's utility. Conventional wisdom and political pundits suggest that presidents working in divided government will have impossible difficulty working with Congress, but history suggests otherwise. The president's ability to successfully build enacting coalitions during divided government requires him to perform two rather disparate tasks. First, the president must minimize the amount of presidential party members who cross party lines to vote against the president's position. Second, the president must entice at least some opposition party members to cross party lines and support the president's position. Using data from 1981 to 2015, I find that representatives’ behavior on presidential support votes are related to constituency-level presidential strength, electoral vulnerability, ideological moderation, and ideological extremity. I use these results to identify the critical members of the 113th Congress. When a majority of these critical members supported President Obama's positions his legislative efforts were successful. When a majority of these members opposed the president's positions, the House Republican majority defeated the president.     

“Happy Birthday” and Other Awkward Sentiments: Nixon’s Social Interactions as Part of Congressional Relationship Building

Abstract

Presidential persuasion is one of the most investigated soft-power interactions between the president and members of Congress. However, presidents are often as interested in long-term relationship building strategies that do not include an immediate favor request. This project analyzes those relationship building strategies between President Richard Nixon and members of Congress. One hundred sixty-three conversations between Nixon and members of Congress have been transcribed and analyzed. As part of an overall goal of building and maintaining interbranch relationships with members of Congress, Nixon utilized a mixture of three social goal approaches: social-support contacts, information gathering and exchange contacts, and offering material benefits.