The Middle Way

This book explores the shared foreign policy legacies of Dwight Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and how they exemplify a distinct and underappreciated tradition of political leadership: the Middle Way. The book explores how these three presidents thought about the world and American leadership, and how they grappled with foreign policy crises and navigated politics. Drawing upon new archival research at the Eisenhower and Bush presidential libraries, and interviews with former Obama officials, the book shows how these presidents took a centrist approach to foreign policy and provides a model for America to reinvigorate its role as a global leader. This work of presidential history looks behind the scenes at some of the most important moments in foreign policy since World War II, and it explores the broader lessons for American foreign policy and leadership. The book reflects the author’s unique experience as a senior official at the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon to show how Washington, DC, works from the inside; and in the process, offers a new way of thinking about American global leadership and makes a case for new ways to measure presidential success.

Presidential Power, Vetoes, and Public Policy: a Comparative Study between Brazil and the United States

<p><strong>[Poder presidencial, vetos y política pública: Un estudio comparativo de Brasil y Estados Unidos]</strong></p><p><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p><p>Much of the literature on Presidentialism focuses on the argument that bipartisan presidential systems are better able to avoid a conflictive Executive-Legislative relationship by facilitating the formation of coalitions in Congress and partisan ideological identification. From a comparative perspective, this study aims to identify and discuss the ability of the presidents of the United States and Brazil to promote public policy, and to examine the degree of conflict in the drafting of these policies by studying legislative vetoes. In addition, it analyzes the success rate of welfare bills voted in the lower chamber of the two countries and supported by their respective presidents. The period studied here covers 16 years (from 1995 to 2010 in Brazil and in the United States from 1993 to 2008), consisting of eight years of more liberal administrations and eight years of more conservative ones in each country. The presented hypothesis is that there is no significant difference between two-party or multi-party systems in terms of conflict, public policy drafting and presidential success rate. The data are analyzed using multivariate regressions and undergo qualitative treatment for a deeper understanding.</p><p><strong>RESUMEN</strong></p><p>Gran parte de la literatura sobre el presidencialismo se centra en el argumento de que los sistemas presidenciales bipartidistas son más capaces de evitar una relación conflictiva entre ejecutivo y legislativo al facilitar la formación de coaliciones en el Congreso y la identificación ideológica partidista. Desde una perspectiva comparativa, este estudio tiene como objetivo identificar y discutir los poderes de los presidentes de los Estados Unidos y Brasil para promover políticas públicas y verificar el grado de conflicto en la producción de dichas políticas mediante el control de los vetos legislativos. Analiza también la tasa de éxito de los proyectos de leyes de políticas de bienestar votadas en la cámara baja de los dos países y respaldados por sus respectivos presidentes. Abarca un período de 16 años (de 1995 a 2010 en Brasil y en los Estados Unidos de 1993 a 2008), con ocho años de administraciones más liberales y ocho años de gobiernos más conservadores en cada país. La hipótesis es que no hay una diferencia significativa con respecto al conflicto y la producción de políticas públicas en sistemas bipartidistas o multipartidistas y que las tasas de éxito son similares. Los datos se analizan mediante regresiones multivariables y se someten a un tratamiento cualitativo para una comprensión más profunda.</p>

A Bounds Approach to Inference Using the Long Run Multiplier

Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001) (PSS) proposed a bounds procedure for testing for the existence of long run cointegrating relationships between a unit root dependent variable ($y_{t}$) and a set of weakly exogenous regressors $\boldsymbol{x}_{t}$ when the analyst does not know whether the independent variables are stationary, unit root, or mutually cointegrated processes. This procedure recognizes the analyst’s uncertainty over the nature of the regressors but not the dependent variable. When the analyst is uncertain whether $y_{t}$ is a stationary or unit root process, the test statistics proposed by PSS are uninformative for inference on the existence of a long run relationship (LRR) between $y_{t}$ and $\boldsymbol{x}_{t}$. We propose the long run multiplier (LRM) test statistic as a means of testing for LRRs without knowing whether the series are stationary or unit roots. Using stochastic simulations, we demonstrate the behavior of the test statistic given uncertainty about the univariate dynamics of both $y_{t}$ and $\boldsymbol{x}_{t}$, illustrate the bounds of the test statistic, and generate small sample and approximate asymptotic critical values for the upper and lower bounds for a range of sample sizes and model specifications. We demonstrate the utility of the bounds framework for testing for LRRs in models of public policy mood and presidential success.

Term Limits

The case-study chapters looked at all presidential powers within a given constitution. This looks at one presidential power—term limits—across all constitutions to provide one final test for the book’s power asymmetry argument. I conduct a statistical test to show how power asymmetry, this time measured by approval rates, lead to presidential success in relaxing term limits. Across Latin America since the 1980s, term limits became one of the most active and contentious areas of constitutional change. The chapter reveals, first, that not all popular presidents pursue efforts to change term limits, but those who do have a higher chance of prevailing the more popular they are. Second, the only political actors capable of preventing the expansion of term limits, other than the courts, is the ruling party. Popular presidents interested in expanding presidential power thus face incentives to weaken the same political machine that brought them to office.

Presidents, Baseball, and Wins above Expectations: What Can Sabermetrics Tell Us about Presidential Success?

ABSTRACT Presidential scholars and baseball writers debate who were the greatest. While baseball analysis evolved from qualitative impressions of “experts” to rigorous, data-driven “sabermetrics,” analysis of presidential greatness continues to rely on “old-school” reputational rankings based on surveys of scholars’ qualitative assessments. Presidential-congressional relations and baseball are all about winning, but what fans (of sports and politics) find most intriguing is Wins Above Expectations (WAE)—did the team do better or worse than expected? This paper adapts the Pythagorean Expectations (PE) formula developed to analyze baseball to assess legislative success of presidents from Eisenhower to Obama. A parsimonious regression model and the PE formula predict annual success rates with 90% accuracy. The estimates of WAE from the two approaches, however, are uncorrelated. Regression analysis does not identify any president who systematically exceeded expectations, but sabermetric analysis indicates that Republican presidents outperform Democrats. Neither approach correlates with recent presidential greatness rankings.

Increasing Failure Rates in Canadian University Leadership

There is growing concern in Canada about the increasing failure rate of university presidents. Institutional boards invest significant time and money into presidential recruitment, engaging professional search firms and consulting with a vast array of stakeholders. Given this intense scrutiny, why are more and more Canadian university leaders failing? What changes can be made to reverse this trend? Based on his almost 20 years of experience as university president, a longitudinal study of presidencies in 47 Canadian universities and other current research, the author provides an overview of the issues involved, explores them in more detail through mini-case studies and identifies “institutional fit” as the key variable in presidential success. The chapter concludes with suggestions to Boards and prospective presidential candidates as to how they can increase the likelihood of success in such crucial appointments.