Presidential Power: Forging the Presidency for the Twenty-First Century (review)

Presidential Power: Forging the Presidency for the Twenty-FirstCentury. Edited by Robert Y. Shapiro, Martha Joynt Kumar, and Lawrence R. Jacobs. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000; pp. xvi + 525. $49.50 cloth; $26.50 paper.

This substantial volume of 23 essays originated in a conference held at Columbia University, celebrating the 35th anniversary of the publication of Richard Neustadt's Presidential Power. The idea behind the conference, and the book, was to explore both the signal contribution of Neustadt to the study of the U.S. presidency and the frontiers of contemporary research on the subject. Thus one of the themes that emerges from the volume concerns the continuing relevance of Presidential Power to presidency scholarship in political science.

The book begins with essays by George Edwards and John Gunnell placing Neustadt's work in the context of both presidency research and the evolution of contemporary political science, respectively. Both stress the importance of debates over pluralism as context for Neustadt's work, and its significance as a step beyond legalism. Both also emphasize, though, that Neustadt sought not a value-neutral science of politics, but a blueprint for a stronger presidency. Thus linking Neustadt to the development of contemporary political science is possible, but also problematic.

The heart of the book lies in four sections examining the personal presidency, the institutionalization of the organizational presidency, the presidency in the larger political system, and the issue of presidential leadership. Each section is introduced with an essay by a veteran presidential scholar who gives an overview of developments in the area, links them to Neustadt, and introduces essays by (mostly) relatively junior scholars. These introductory essays, by Lyn Ragsdale, Bert Rockman, Jeffrey Tulis, and Mark Peterson, plus concluding essays by editors Jacobs and Shapiro and by Neustadt himself, are themselves useful meditations on the current state of research on the presidency.

The work by contemporary researchers provokes a mixed bag of evaluations where the relevance of Neustadt's work is concerned. Some of the stronger pieces, notably Thomas Preston on leadership style and Charles Cameron on veto bargaining, develop themes wholly consistent with Neustadt's emphasis on the bargaining skills of individual presidents. Likewise, Nolan McCarty and Rose Razaghian present and test a model of rational anticipation in which presidents are found to strategically hold back on controversial appointments in the confirmation process. But more of the "cutting edge" essays concern themselves less with the individual level of analysis and more with the institutionalization of the presidency. Thus, for instance, several essays track the accretion of staff and functions in the White House and Executive Office of the President, while others draw attention to the system-level institutional constraints modern presidents must face, and their efforts to deal with them organizationally.

These essays cover much ground and employ a range of techniques, illustrating the extent to which the field has moved beyond Neustadt's focus on individual presidents and his reliance on insights from events. Several contributors dwell on the topic of the institutionalization of the presidency, tending to view it as both a necessity and, sometimes, a limitation. Matthew Dickinson traces the growth in complexity of the White House staff as a whole, explaining it statistically in Neustadtian terms as aimed at reducing bargaining uncertainty. Kenneth Mayer and Thomas Weko use case studies grounded (fairly loosely) in rational-choice "new institutionalism" to track the institutionalization of presidential control over personnel, budgets, and regulation. Michael Link's essay uses network analysis to show how, over time, presidents tend to rely on fewer and more proximate advisors, an effective illustration of how staffing can be both a tool and a limitation. Likewise Diane Heith's discussion of presidential polling located, perhaps ironically, in the section on "leadership," points to the degree to which the levers of power have been amplified but also routinized and thereby constrained in the modern presidency.

Some, however, discover more apparent discretion...