It is an honor to have been invited to reflect on George Edwards’s contributions to presidency scholarship and to our field more generally. Like many, I have benefited from George’s mentorship, intellectual challenges, and professional guidance. He is a treasured colleague, role model, and friend.
I welcomed the excuse to return to the APSR article with which we were asked to begin – “Who Influences Whom? The President, Congress and the Media?” (1999). It has the hallmarks of all of George’s works: the research and analysis are careful, clear, systematic, nuanced, and insightful. The work reminds us as well of the changes that have followed its publication: parties and politics have polarized, party coalitions have transformed, and the links between mass and elites have frayed and altered. Even so, its variables (if not its values and specific relationships) and analysis are sturdy.
Like virtually all of George’s scholarship, this article has been influential: A Google scholar search (using the keywords “presidential influence,” “Congress,” and “presidential prestige”) produced 99 cites from 1977 through 2015 in multiple scholarly journals (including APSR, AJPS, JOP, PRQ, APR, Presidential Studies Quarterly and Congress and the Presidency); excluded were the numerous books that also draw on the article. Meanwhile, how he (and we) study the presidency and the political system in which it is embedded and that it reflects, and shapes, has evolved. We use different measures and statistical techniques, more systematically incorporate qualitative evidence, and include other policy areas and political systems.
Among the myriad examples are work on the dynamics, generalizations, and lessons of presidential transitions and on the patterns of legislative, presidential and executive branch relationships at multiple points of the policy process and across policy arenas.
More generally, George’s 1976 article heralded what has become a broadening and deepening of scholarship on the US presidency. First, we have more cumulative research. Among the myriad examples are work on the dynamics, generalizations, and lessons of presidential transitions and on the patterns of legislative, presidential and executive branch relationships at multiple points of the policy process and across policy arenas.
Second, presidency scholars are among those exploring influences on and the implications of change and stability. Works on the “unilateral presidency,” for instance, have traced its evolution to the founding, probed contemporary presidents’ strategic employment of specific tools (e.g., Obama’s shift to “quasi-proclamations”), compared influences of its use and achievement of presidential objectives, and raised concerns about its frequency, constitutionality, and lasting effects. Others examine how presidencies try to cope with increasingly diversifying and fragmenting media, their growing reliance on social media, and the seemingly relentless contraction of space in which presidents can be heard, much less try to influence others. As George has highlighted, the primary narrative is one of presidential facilitation, not direction, and of tactical adjustments.
Third, since the 1970s, presidency research has been enriched by access to greater amounts and more diverse types of data. Archival materials continue to be digitized; the American Presidency Project, the Miller Center, and NARA remain scholarly treasure troves; social media archives and associated “Big Data” analytics point to promising opportunities. Of course, like other social scientists we wrestle with ongoing challenges of measurement validity and of shifts in use and meaning (e.g., “executive orders,” “dual vetoes”).
Fourth, presidency research now relies on a broader range of research designs and methodological approaches, including survey experiments, process tracing, and comparative case analyses. Meanwhile, scholars employ increasingly sophisticated statistical techniques and game theoretic and other formal modeling.
Where do we go from here? Like Ian Shapiro, I value problem-driven scholarship. That said, paying attention to theoretical and methodological foci clearly is critical as well. Theoretically, it appears to me to be useful to begin as Edwards and Terry Moe do, with a view of presidents as strategic, purposive actors. Deserving consideration as well, though, is how such an actor (viewed variously as an individual and as an institution) is embedded in and influenced by complex, dynamic, and overlapping networks.
This in turn underscores a need to self-consciously model specific types of context. Key contexts might encompass several important, if not as fully studied areas. These evidently include intergovernmental arenas in the US (e.g., presidential direct action in granting waivers, policy dynamics when states and nonprofits are contractors in areas of presidential priority). Researchers also might continue to explore relationships inside the federal executive branch much as Rudalevige (Reference Rudalevige2002) and Lewis (2008) have done. A systematic emphasis on decision-making in differing contexts, albeit challenging, appears valuable as well.
One also might compare executives within the US (and possibly other federal systems, like Australia, Canada, Germany, and Mexico); one could probe the generalizability of hypotheses from presidency research about, for instance, the impact of formal powers, evolution of staffs.
Inevitably, issues of contemporary governance occupy at least some of our attention, much as George has usefully joined conversations about the Electoral College and presidential impact on approval levels. Our scholarship raises concerns about both presidential weakness (in responding to climate change, in addressing gun control) and overreach (e.g., using the state secrets doctrine, employing drones).
Challenges remain.
