The Political Presidency: Practice of Leadership from Kennedy Through Reagan

by Barbara Kellerman

Book Overview

How presidents lead--or fail to--is the central concern of this pointed analysis of political leadership in America. Beginning with a solid theoretical examination of the political leadership, Kellerman moves on to assess the nature of presidential power under America's six most recent administrations and considers the way each president handled the most important item on his domestic agenda.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195040376
• ISBN13: 9780195040371
• Release Date: March 1986
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

An Anomaly! Gives value to American Politics and Leadership.

"Presidential power is the power to persuade," wrote Richard Neustadt in Presidential Power his famous handbook on the presidency (15). But what does it take to effectively use that power in order to become an effective leader in the Oval Office? In her book The Political Presidency, Barbara Kellerman did more than merely cite and expound on Neustadt's famous line. Kellerman took his quote a step further in diagnosing the presidencies of John F. Kennedy down through Ronald Reagan in order to develop what works and does not work in each administration. In doing so, Kellerman has not only given the reader a better perspective on the presidency, she has also uncovered strategies for leaders who wish to succeed in any arena besides the presidency. Kellerman's main hypothesis regarding presidential leadership is, "the president who is motivated and equipped to be politically skilled will prove to be a more effective leader in the American political culture than the one to whom politicking is irrelevant or even distasteful" (53). In signifying her thesis, Kellerman focuses on the domestic agendas of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. Her tendency is to make an assertion based on the success rate of the single major domestic objective of each president and show how his political leadership made that agenda a success or a failure. Her major bias is towards the more extroverted presidents who have a personal desire for political influence on the national level. She also asserts that it is these presidents who tend to be more successful in achieving their domestic priorities. That is why Kellerman believes that the two most successful recent presidencies have been those of Johnson whom she titles "the very model of a political president" (124) and Reagan who "brought to the presidency both remarkable personal qualities and a readiness to employ a wide array of political tactics" (252). However, Kellerman's hypothesis is best demonstrated not in analyzing the two most successful presidents, it is best shown in her scrutiny of the factors behind the failure of Carter's energy plan. Her main contention with Jimmy Carter is his abhorrence towards politics. She states that in "playing the manager instead of the politician [he] chose to separate and distance himself from what he saw as little more than a sullied kind of maneuvering" (23). Another aspect of Carter which Kellerman contends with is the fact that he was extremely introverted and labels him "an inner-directed man" (219). Kellerman perceives that these two factors are the primary explanation for the failure of the national energy policy. She concludes that Carter "was a political failure because, especially in the initial and very critical months, he was very much a failed politician" (219). While Neustadt analyzed each president's persuasive capabilities, Kellerman used The Political Presidency to reveal how a preside