The American Presidency 4219-SF003
The purpose of the class is to introduce students to the nature and functioning of today’s American presidency. We will examine the multidimensional nature of the office and see how it’s operation is determined by who sits in the Oval Office. We shall study how presidents interact with Congress, how they handle pressures coming from interest groups and how they use media to mobilize public support for their policies. Our basic framework will be Kernell’s division into three types of presidential activities targeted at: Washington insiders, the public, and the international community. In order to understand how a presidency functions in today’s politics we will follow the framework of “presidential roles”: commander-in-chief, chief diplomat, legislator, administrator, lobbyist, party leader, head of state, campaigner, and communicator.
president in the political system - introduction
basic approaches to the study of the presidency:
constitutional - extraconstitutional powers (roles)
two presidencies theory (Tulis)
modern - post-modern presidency (Rose)
presidential power as persuasion (Neustadt)
leadership style/presidential "psychology" (Barber)
Presidents and regime change /continuity (Skowronek)
Key moments in the development of the American Presidency
GW, AJ, AL, TR, FDR, LBJ, RR, DT
President on the political scene, in relations with:
Congress
Administration
Parties and Interest groups
Courts
President and the public - presidency as communication of power
President in the international arena
Evaluating the Presidents: Presidential ratings (popularity and effectiveness)
LAST CLASS: final exam, esaay style in-class.
Type of course
Mode
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Students will know the structure of the White House; will understand the evolution of the American presidency; will be able to recognize the diversity of actors in American politics, will appreciate the various roles the executive plays in the political system; will learn how to define and recognize power relations in democratic politics. Students will analyze determinants of political behavior, will discriminate between institutional and human limitations of power, will analyze survey data and draw generalizations from it. Students will compile and present results of independent study of political statistics. Will acquire ability to see the historical context of political phenomena. Students will acquire competence as independent researcher of simple topics; be able to review short pieces of literature, find biographical information in archives and databases
Assessment criteria
Accreditation (zaliczenie) in the form of an in-class written test: short answers, some choice of questions (60%); presentation or a term paper (a case study of presidency in action, analysis of a particular policy as it happens during the semester) (30%), participation in class discussions (10%).
Bibliography
All mandatory readings are available on the UW Kampus-Come website
M. Nelson, Presidency in the Political System, CQ PRess
James Barber, The presidential Character (excerpts)
R. Rose The Post Modern Presidency
S. Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make
R. Neustadt, Presidential Leadership
Non essential texts
James Pfiffner, Roger Davidson, Understanding the Presidency, Longman
Richard Pious, The Presidency, Allyn and Bacon
Samuel kernell, Going Public, CQ Press
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: