In Federalist No. 71, Alexander Hamilton argues in favor of a four-year term of office for the president on the grounds that this length of time will arm the chief executive with the independence and firmness necessary to act contrary to the popular will when the public good requires it. The presidency is designed to approach politics from a broader and universalistic perspective, and structurally equipped to do the right thing. Hamilton recognizes, however, that the president will lose some of this firmness with the approach of a new election, and perhaps cater more toward constituent demands. By the fourth year of his term, the president may allow personal electoral concerns to alter his incentives.

In their award-winning book—The Particularistic President won the 2016 Richard Neustadt Award for best book on the American presidency—Douglas Kriner and Andrew Reeves make use of an impressive array of sophisticated methodologies to verify and expand Hamilton’s observation. Their target is the vision of a universalistic president (whether Theodore Roosevelt’s “steward of the people” or Woodrow Wilson’s representative-in-chief) and the many scholars who argue that presidents constitute a balance to Congress’s parochialism. Instead, the authors argue that the president is “particularistic,” not universalistic, that the president is, in fact, just as particularistic as Congress, if not more so, and ignores the national interest for the sake of political gain.

The nature of this particularism can be found in the structural features of the American system of government. Kriner and Reeves capably outline their basic hypotheses in Chapter 2. Their three principal points are that presidents will target counties in swing states with more federal benefits than counties in uncompetitive states, especially in presidential elections years; that they will also target core states that strongly support the president’s party; and, finally, that they will also target constituencies represented by fellow partisans in Congress (p. 48). Thus, driven by electoral, partisan, and coalitional incentives, presidents do the opposite of taking a truly national view of policy.

Kriner and Reeves offer several engaging examples of this particularism. Indeed, it is not difficult to find anecdotes of presidents bragging about what they have done for specific groups in Ohio or Florida. But the real meat of the book comes in Chapters 3–5, where the authors use quantitative methods, with detailed appendices, to demonstrate the systematic nature of presidential particularism. There, they address particularism in trade policy, military base closures, disaster declarations, transportation grants, and federal grants in general. The authors do an excellent job describing the policy arenas, matching them up with the different types of particularism. They find strong evidence of electoral particularism in trade policy and partisan particularism with military base closures.

Perhaps the most fascinating discussion is the analysis of disaster declarations in Chapter 4. As the authors point out, of all the areas of policymaking, one would think that disaster declarations would be the most immune to selfish interests: “If presidents are universalistic, they should assess the severity of weather damage and then decide whether to issue a declaration” (p. 83). No fear: even in this arena, the authors find evidence of all three kinds of particularism. Even in areas where Congress presumably has the lion’s share of discretionary power, such as budgetary politics, presidents can and do target federal grants to specific constituencies. Swing states benefit in election years, and core states benefit throughout. The authors conclude in Chapter 6 with a controlled experiment designed to demonstrate how public opinion rewards presidents electorally for pursuing particularistic politics.

The Particularistic President is well written and engaging. It contains a nice balance of case studies and anecdotes that illustrate the authors’ points, and quantitative features that demonstrate the more systemic problems. The authors somewhat exaggerate their target—it is not as if all presidency scholars are wedded to a national mandate understanding of the presidency. Also, it is no mystery that presidents desire second terms, favor their copartisan constituencies, and desire to strengthen their coalitions in Congress. However, this book serves as a powerful and challenging corrective to those who see greater presidential power and authority as a solution to modern ills, for at the core of the argument is the allegation that presidents are responsible for political inequality. They “place their thumb on the scale” (p. 181) in acts that seemingly run contrary to their oath of office.

Several questions arise in the book, however, that beg for more in-depth treatment. Several of the studies span the time period from the 1980s through 2008—an era completely bracketed by our modern plebiscitary nomination system. I would like to see a broader historical analysis to ascertain how much of this might be due to the McGovern-Fraser reforms. Swing states have always been with us, after all. This period also coincides with the rise of polarization, in which case we may be able to expect nothing else from presidents who are also party leaders.

The authors also chase the “White Whale” of Electoral College reform. But if the structural features of the Electoral College are to be blamed for presidential particularism, we should see evidence of it for the past 180 years. I suspect that more blame can be placed on the rise of the administrative state than on the Electoral College, and the move to a direct popular vote would likely simply shift the locus of action for particularistic politics.

Also, it is not clear how troubled we should be about the level of inequality in the various studies. For the most part, the level of presidential “thumb on the scales” amounts to a range of 2%–7%. The authors are very diligent in quantifying what this means in a practical way, identifying, for example, an additional $17 million if a county were in a swing state (p. 130). And while that certainly is not chump change, it does tend to disappear in a multitrillion-dollar budget. It would be interesting to see the authors tease out the breakpoint for electoral victory for particularistic politics. After all, despite their best efforts, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama could not make successful use of particularistic politics to secure the victory of their partisan successors.

This last point raises one final area of interest for this study. Most election forecasting models make use of national data—public opinion polls, the economy, number of terms in office—to forecast election results, often quite successfully. Kriner and Reeves call into question that entire subfield, making the argument that voters reward presidents at the polls for channeling federal dollars to their communities. Such an argument calls into question much of what we think we know about partisanship and voting behavior. The authors should take their considerable talents and demonstrate the superiority of their method in the forecasting subfield.

Regardless of these quibbles, The Particularistic President is an excellent book fully worthy of the accolades it has already earned. It challenges our understanding of the role of presidency in national life, and it should stimulate many new lines of research. It should be read by anyone who is interested in the function of the president in the constitutional order.