Tough Times for the President: Political Adversity and the Sour ...

cover ten presidents—every president from Truman to George W. Bush (except John Kennedy) is included. These cases are selected from the record of the presidency since World War II, as identified in table 1.

A Common Format for the Case Studies

To enhance the clarity of the cases and our ability to draw lessons from them about the nature of the presidency and executive power, we will employ a common format for our case studies. Each case study will contain the following elements:

1. Prologue: This addresses the president’s situation of political adversity. The prologue will examine how the president came to be in the situation, as well as providing a description and overview of the adverse circumstances facing the president (such as approval rating, loss of seats in Congress, etc.). The prologue presents the challenge facing the president.

2. The president’s response to adversity: What did the president do in response to the challenge? Each case study will examine the possible dimensions of presidential response, including efforts at persuasion, executive actions, foreign policy initiatives and actions, and the use of public politics. In addition, each case study will look for unconventional actions by the president in an effort to see how chief executives may take innovative actions in response to the challenges of political adversity.
a. Bargaining and persuasion—Is there evidence of presidential engagement in bargaining and persuasion to meet the challenge of adversity? Were these efforts successful?
b. Executive actions
i. Use of constitutional powers—How did the president employ the constitutional powers of the office in response to adversity?
ii. Other unilateral actions—What actions did the chief executive undertake to expand presidential power?