Skowronek: Implications
Jun. 24th, 2007 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowIn a couple of earlier posts, I've discussed the political paradigm put forward by Stephen Skowronek in The Politics Presidents Make. I'd like to take a look at some of the implications of the paradigm as regards the last few presidencies, under the cut. (I will be looking at things under the assumptions of that paradigm, of course; my conclusions, thus, will not be more accurate than those assumptions, and of course may well be less.)
The current cycle, in Skowronek's schema, began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Reagan was a reconstructive President; that is, he was elected in opposition to a Democratic ascendancy, dating back to Franklin Roosevelt and now in collapse. It is characteristic of reconstructive Presidents that they attempt major expansions of executive power, both absolutely and relative to the other branches of government. However, given the secular trend towards greater powers of resistance on the part of those other branches, it has become more and more difficult for reconstructors to achieve those expansions. Lincoln was rebuffed by the Taney court in Ex parte Milligan; FDR's First New Deal was struck down by the courts, and his attempts to bring to heel the courts (via "court packing") and the legislature (breaking the power of the conservative Southern Democrats) went nowhere; and Reagan's experience was similar. David Stockman, Reagan's Budget Director, was to write
The Iran-contra affair can be seen as one consequence of this. Baulked in action in the regular, formal paths, the administration moved towards more informal, more irregular methods. One critical aspect was the development of a source of executive funding entirely outside the purview of the legislature. (This has always been, to me, the most disturbing facet of the scandal, but the only pundit I know of who mentioned it was Edwin Yoder, in an Op-Ed column. The importance of the legislature's control of the purse is woven throughout the history of the development of democracy in Britain, France, and the United States.) This attempt to outflank Congress fits the pattern of a reconstructive Presidency; that it was aborted fits the long-term secular trend.
George H. W. Bush's Presidency was of the type that Skowronek calls "articulative", as a successor to a reconstructor tries to maintain and extend the new ascendancy, but at the same time to establish himself as President in his own right. His grip on the Reagan coalition was less than firm, and the tensions within that coalition forced him to make choices that weakened him, including, notoriously, his decision to raise taxes, contrary to an earlier pledge. His failure to win re-election is not particularly surprising; articulative Presidents often have such difficulties. (Skowronek identifies Lyndon Johnson as the exemplar in the previous cycle.)
Bill Clinton was "preemptive", in Skowronek's typology - elected in opposition to a still-resilient orthodoxy, parallel to Eisenhower and Nixon in the previous cycle. Clinton is often denounced by the left wing of the Democratic Party for being too willing to compromise - his strategy of "triangulation". Yet it is difficult to see what else he could have done. The Reagan coalition was still vigorous; the elections of 1994 proved that if nothing else. Presidents in this position can only achieve a measure of success by this kind of moderation. (The laundry list of Nixon's initiatives that are liberal by today's standards is well-known.) Early in his administration, Clinton did attempt more vigorous - and more liberal - action, but failed. (Is it coincidental that his lowest approval numbers came during that first two years?)
It is too early to classify George W. Bush in this typology. It seems most likely that he falls into the articulative category, I think; the closest parallel might be Theodore Roosevelt, who attempted to reinvigorate the coalition that Lincoln had brought into being, but who wound up splitting his party and handing the Presidency - though not the ascendancy - to the opposition. On the other hand, he might fall into the fourth group, of "disjunctive" Presidents - those elected in affiliation to an ascendancy that is on the verge of breaking up. One characteristic of such Presidents that Skowronek mentions is the "reification of technique" - a declaration of one's managerial skills as being of the essence. Carter, Hoover, Pierce, and J. Q. Adams each made such assertions, and the "CEO President" may be seen as made of the same stuff. The events of September 2001 allowed - indeed, forced - Bush to take a different path, but the same could be said (and indeed Skowronek does say so) of the impact of October 1929 on Herbert Hoover. Skowronek suggests that Hoover's response to the crash reinvigorated his Presidency and gave him an opportunity to advance his own unique agenda - an advance only partially successful, and insufficient to ward off his defeat in 1932.
Are we on the verge of another reconstructive Presidency? It could be. But the secular trend has not ended; even if the Reagan coalition collapses completely in 2008, the new President will face institutional constraints even tighter than those that hamstrung Reagan, and will also confront temptations to sidestep the other branches and the bureaucracy - a prospect which, after the events of the last several years, frightens me greatly. (That the Democratic field includes one man of great charisma and another of strong populist inclinations both pleases and disturbs me, in this connection. I am undecided, so far, as to who to support...)
The current cycle, in Skowronek's schema, began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Reagan was a reconstructive President; that is, he was elected in opposition to a Democratic ascendancy, dating back to Franklin Roosevelt and now in collapse. It is characteristic of reconstructive Presidents that they attempt major expansions of executive power, both absolutely and relative to the other branches of government. However, given the secular trend towards greater powers of resistance on the part of those other branches, it has become more and more difficult for reconstructors to achieve those expansions. Lincoln was rebuffed by the Taney court in Ex parte Milligan; FDR's First New Deal was struck down by the courts, and his attempts to bring to heel the courts (via "court packing") and the legislature (breaking the power of the conservative Southern Democrats) went nowhere; and Reagan's experience was similar. David Stockman, Reagan's Budget Director, was to write
[The program] implied a stunningly radical theory of governance. The constitutional prerogatives of the legislative branch would have to be, in effect, suspended... The Congress felt that as a co-equal branch of government, it had the right to 'mix and match'... What they didn't realize was that... the Reagan Revolution had all along required of them one thing: complete surrender.It was not merely the Democrat-dominated House that resisted; the Republican-controlled Senate was only marginally more amenable, and after the first year or so of Reagan's Presidency he was unable to push Congress in the directions he wished it to go.
The Iran-contra affair can be seen as one consequence of this. Baulked in action in the regular, formal paths, the administration moved towards more informal, more irregular methods. One critical aspect was the development of a source of executive funding entirely outside the purview of the legislature. (This has always been, to me, the most disturbing facet of the scandal, but the only pundit I know of who mentioned it was Edwin Yoder, in an Op-Ed column. The importance of the legislature's control of the purse is woven throughout the history of the development of democracy in Britain, France, and the United States.) This attempt to outflank Congress fits the pattern of a reconstructive Presidency; that it was aborted fits the long-term secular trend.
George H. W. Bush's Presidency was of the type that Skowronek calls "articulative", as a successor to a reconstructor tries to maintain and extend the new ascendancy, but at the same time to establish himself as President in his own right. His grip on the Reagan coalition was less than firm, and the tensions within that coalition forced him to make choices that weakened him, including, notoriously, his decision to raise taxes, contrary to an earlier pledge. His failure to win re-election is not particularly surprising; articulative Presidents often have such difficulties. (Skowronek identifies Lyndon Johnson as the exemplar in the previous cycle.)
Bill Clinton was "preemptive", in Skowronek's typology - elected in opposition to a still-resilient orthodoxy, parallel to Eisenhower and Nixon in the previous cycle. Clinton is often denounced by the left wing of the Democratic Party for being too willing to compromise - his strategy of "triangulation". Yet it is difficult to see what else he could have done. The Reagan coalition was still vigorous; the elections of 1994 proved that if nothing else. Presidents in this position can only achieve a measure of success by this kind of moderation. (The laundry list of Nixon's initiatives that are liberal by today's standards is well-known.) Early in his administration, Clinton did attempt more vigorous - and more liberal - action, but failed. (Is it coincidental that his lowest approval numbers came during that first two years?)
It is too early to classify George W. Bush in this typology. It seems most likely that he falls into the articulative category, I think; the closest parallel might be Theodore Roosevelt, who attempted to reinvigorate the coalition that Lincoln had brought into being, but who wound up splitting his party and handing the Presidency - though not the ascendancy - to the opposition. On the other hand, he might fall into the fourth group, of "disjunctive" Presidents - those elected in affiliation to an ascendancy that is on the verge of breaking up. One characteristic of such Presidents that Skowronek mentions is the "reification of technique" - a declaration of one's managerial skills as being of the essence. Carter, Hoover, Pierce, and J. Q. Adams each made such assertions, and the "CEO President" may be seen as made of the same stuff. The events of September 2001 allowed - indeed, forced - Bush to take a different path, but the same could be said (and indeed Skowronek does say so) of the impact of October 1929 on Herbert Hoover. Skowronek suggests that Hoover's response to the crash reinvigorated his Presidency and gave him an opportunity to advance his own unique agenda - an advance only partially successful, and insufficient to ward off his defeat in 1932.
Are we on the verge of another reconstructive Presidency? It could be. But the secular trend has not ended; even if the Reagan coalition collapses completely in 2008, the new President will face institutional constraints even tighter than those that hamstrung Reagan, and will also confront temptations to sidestep the other branches and the bureaucracy - a prospect which, after the events of the last several years, frightens me greatly. (That the Democratic field includes one man of great charisma and another of strong populist inclinations both pleases and disturbs me, in this connection. I am undecided, so far, as to who to support...)
