The Paradoxes of the American Presidency

By Thomas E. Cronin

Book Overview

What exactly do Americans want from their president? A strong and innovative leader or someone who primarily listens to the will of the people? A programmatic party leader or a pragmatic bipartisan coalition-builder? A president who exercises power forcefully or someone who establishes consensus before doing anything? In their provocative new book, The Paradoxes of the American Presidency, Cronin and Genovese suggest Americans want the president to be both a leader and a follower, partisan and bipartisan, innovative and conservative.
Cronin and Genovese explore the complex institution of the American Presidency by viewing it as a series of paradoxes which shape and define the office. The authors look at the clashing expectations and contrarian demands placed upon the president, offering students the opportunity to begin to understand the dilemma faced by all incumbents -- how to bring leadership into a separated system where expectations far exceed the resources and power available to the incumbent. The authors focus on the various relationships all presidents must develop if they are to lead successfully -- relations between the president and Congress, the public, and the courts; the managerial side of the executive branch; the new roles of the cabinet, Vice President, and president's spouse; the vagaries of the selection process; and the inherent contradictions of leadership in a democratic system. Written in a lively, engaging style, this comprehensive, interpretive work represents the collaboration of two highly respected presidential scholars. This is a major end-of-the-century treatment of one of Americas most important political institutions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195116933
• ISBN13: 9780195116939
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.1" x 1.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Offers a clear explanation of presidential paradoxes

In this book Dr. Genovese and Dr. Cronin offer a clear explanation of the different paradoxes of the American presidency. They explain the expectation gap that is present in the American presidency where the president has a clear public expectation to be a successful leader yet is bound by roadblocks constitutional and otherwise that make such a success difficult to achieve. I found it as a Political Science major to be an illuminating explanation of the American Presidency.

Surprisingly Good

What an informative and insightful book this turned out to be. I found it on a sale table and gave it a try. I was concerned that the book was nothing more then a tenured professor's attempt at fulfilling his publishing requirements, it turns out that this concern not needed. The book takes the reader through most of the major issues that effect the President in his duties and it does it in an easy to read and understandable format. What is very interesting is that they present the "paradoxes" that the public has pushed the Presidents into the corner on. What we the public what and expects has shaped the office as much as the past office holders. The authors also look at some stated ways of improving the Presidency and what their opinions are on the methods - very interesting. To bring the ideas and comments more alive they fill the book up with a large number of examples of which a good 70 % relate to the last 10 Presidents. There are also two sections that, given the past years, are even more interesting - Vice Presidents moving to the lead role and impeachment. Overall this was a very good and interesting book. This is the kind of book that both entertains and teaches the reader something in the process.

And Yet Nonetheless True

In Chapter 1, the authors observe:"We admire presidential power, yet fear it. We yearn for the heroic, yet are also inherently suspicious of it.We demand dynamic leadership, yet grant only limited powers to the president. We want presidents to be dispassionate analysts and listeners, yet they must also be decisive. We are impressed with presidents who have great self-confidence, yet we dislike arrogance and respect those who express reasonable self-doubt."Throughout the balance of this chapter, they then identify and briefly discuss nine specific paradoxes which serve as the intellectual infrastructure of this brilliant book. In process, the authors also provide (in effect) a comprehensive analysis of more than 200 years of American history during which the office of the president as well as those who have occupied it reflect the dynamic tensions between and among the elements of the nine paradoxes. The authors seem to suggest that those American presidents who have proven most effective have been those who (a) understood various paradoxes and then (b) somehow resolved them. The Roosevelts offer two of the best examples. Both were born into wealth and privilege and yet each is best remembered for advancing "populist" causes. The authors invite the reader to view the American presidency "by viewing it through the lens of a series of [such] paradoxes that shape and define the office. Our goal is to convey the complexity, the many-sidedness, and the contrarian aspects of the office." This book will be of special value to those interested in American history, of course, but also to those who are CEOs of organizations, especially of publicly owned corporations whose CEOs must accommodate the needs and interests of so many different (often antagonistic) constituencies.