Social and Behavioral Sciences | Open Access Articles

A Loss Of Control: Privilege Cases Diminish Presidential Power, Neal Devins

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.

Bill Clinton And The Rhetoric Of Chief Legislator: Did Deeds Follow Words?, Donna R. Hoffman, Alison D. Howard

Alison Dana Howard

With a State of the Union address, the president seeks to exert leadership by setting the nation on a path, outlining an agenda, and using the art of persuasion to achieve his policy goals. One means that a president uses to signal his legislative agenda to Congress and the American public is the State of the Union address (SUA). While the policies mentioned in this speech do no encompass the whole of the president's legislative agenda, the policies mentioned indicate the items which the administration has chosen to highlight publicly before both Congress and the rest of the country. The …

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Presidential Traits And Job Approval: Some Aggregate-Level Evidence., Brian Newman

Brian Newman

In a previous article in this journal, Cohen (2001) introduced time series measures of public perceptions of Bill Clinton's personal characteristics. Here, I explore the political impact of these perceptions, asking whether they affect the public's evaluations of presidential job performance. I find that they do, adding aggregate-level support to existing individual-level evidence of the importance of character assessments. Finding a connection between character perceptions and job approval in the aggregate time series context helps answer questions previous studies leave unresolved, with significant implications for our understanding of presidential approval and presidential politics more generally. [First paragraph]