You're forgetting Congress and the punditocracy. If a president's approval rating is around 40, his agenda will lose support of the legislature and "opinion leaders." I think that's what Bartels was getting after, though I do mean to do a follow-up. Doug <<<<<>>>>>
analyses of u.s. presidency often focuses on constitutional balance of power between congress and white house - focus that resistricts analysis to questions of 'means', rare is examination of more unsettling questions of 'ends' of presidency and public policy, even rarer are the times a president might perceive his (perhaps in future, her) options as being imprisoned by the ends of a capitalist economy, 'voluntary captivity' most accurately describes circumstances of presidency...
ability of corporate capital to register its displeasure with government policy involves what poli sci guy charles lindblom calls 'automatic punishing recoil' of market economy, public policymakers, chief among them presidents, are publicly accountable for economic performance, even while economic health is dependent on perceptions and actions of largely unaccountable private individuals, businesses occupy "privileged position" within capitalist economies, and resulting situation of president and other policymakers is comparable to that of a prisoner - they are, in effect, prisoners of 'the market'...
image of president as prisoner flies in face of much of conventional wisdom about chief executive, with its hamiltonian roots, of course, ole' ah was ahead of his time, only in twentieth century did his conception of broad executive power come to pass, shift in power and importance from congress to presidency germinated with first roosevelt, grew through wilson's time, and flourished during fdr's tenure, advocates of 'expansionist' presidency celebrate ideal of purposive, active, power-wielding, yet benelovent chief executive, and tend to downplay threat of president amassing too much power, skeptics wary of growth in presidential power point to excesses of Johnson and Nixon presidencies for confirmation of such dangers...
conventional accounts of presidency, however useful and illuminating, view office as management issue, contending that complexities of world have made job of achieving the nation's goals too big for any one person, seldom are ends of presidential power critically questioned or seen as contributing to difficulties confronting occupants of white house, tradeoffs and limitations encountered by presidents as they pursue goals of economic prosperity and national security are more complicated than personal characteristics of particular individuals, moreover, factors are "structural", they are not only constitutional, but also economic and statist, what president can do is linked to underlying interests behind - and ideology of - capitalist state... michael hoover
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