Strategic Position with Congress

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ideological Polarization ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
Key Questions

This chapter examines Barack Obama’s strategic position with Congress, again explaining why he was not more successful. Presidential persuasion is at the margins of congressional decision making. There are several components of the opportunity for obtaining support from both Democrats and Republicans, aside from existing public support for the president’s initiatives. The chapter first provides an overview of partisanship in Congress and the ideology of Congress before addressing a number of key questions; for example, whether there is a perception in Congress that the president received an electoral mandate on behalf of specific policies, whether the president’s party enjoys a majority in a chamber, the degree of ideological polarization in Congress, or whether the structure of the decision facing Congress favors the president. The chapter shows that presidential leadership is highly dependent on the opportunity structure not only with the public but also with Congress.

Strategic Position with the Public

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
General Direction ◽  
The Public ◽  
Strong Position ◽  
Strategic Position

This chapter illustrates the advantages of focusing on the president’s existing opportunity structure by analyzing Barack Obama’s strategic position with the public to explain why he faced such difficulties in obtaining the public’s support. It argues that all presidents wishing to make important changes in public policy should seek to answer the following questions about their strategic position with public opinion: Did the public provide the president an electoral mandate for his policies? Does the public support the general direction of the president’s policies? How polarized is public opinion? How malleable is public opinion? By answering these questions, we are in a strong position to understand the potential of presidential leadership of the public and more importantly, to predict the likelihood of the president obtaining the public’s support for his programs.

Asking the Right Questions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Successful Leadership ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
The Right

This book examines the role of presidential leadership in American politics, arguing that the key to successful leadership for the president is not persuasion but the president’s broad strategic position regarding the public, and that to reveal this position requires asking the right questions. It illustrates the advantages of focusing on the president’s existing opportunity structure by analyzing the first two years of Barack Obama’s second term. In particular, it considers Obama’s strategic position—his opportunity structure—with the public to explain why he faced such difficulties in obtaining the public’s support. It also explores the president’s opportunity structure in Congress and how he exploits existing public opinion on policies. Finally, it discusses the importance of strategic assessments in presidential leadership and the leverage they give us in evaluating the likely success of strategies for governing.

Predicting the Presidency

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C., III Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
White House ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Skills ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Realistic View ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
Presidential Success

Millions of Americans—including many experienced politicians—viewed Barack Obama through a prism of high expectations, based on a belief in the power of presidential persuasion. Yet many who were inspired by candidate Obama were disappointed in what he was able to accomplish once in the White House. They could not understand why he often was unable to leverage his position and political skills to move the public and Congress to support his initiatives. This book explains why Obama had such difficulty bringing about the change he promised, and challenges the conventional wisdom about presidential leadership. The book shows how we can ask a few fundamental questions about the context of a presidency—the president’s strategic position or opportunity structure—and use the answers to predict a president’s success in winning support for his initiatives. If presidential success is largely determined by a president’s strategic position, what role does persuasion play? Almost every president finds that a significant segment of the public and his fellow partisans in Congress are predisposed to follow his lead. Others may support the White House out of self-interest. The book explores the possibilities of the president exploiting such support, providing a more realistic view of the potential of presidential persuasion. The book sheds new light on the limitations and opportunities of presidential leadership.

Explaining Public Support for the Use of Military Force: The Impact of Reference Point Framing and Prospective Decision Making

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor Perla
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Support ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article examines the determinants of public support for the use of military force. It puts forward a Framing Theory of Policy Objectives (FTPO), which contends that public support for military engagements depends on the public's perception of the policy's objective. However, it is difficult for the public to judge a policy's objective because they cannot directly observe a policy's true intention and influential political actors offer competing frames to define it. This framing contestation, carried out through the media, sets the public's decision-making reference point and determines whether the policy is perceived as seeking to avoid losses or to achieve gains. The FTPO predicts that support will increase when the public perceives policies as seeking to prevent losses and decrease when the public judges policies to be seeking gains. I operationalize and test the theory using content analysis of national news coverage and opinion polls of U.S. intervention in Central America during the 1980s. These framing effects are found to hold regardless of positive or negative valence of media coverage.

Exploiting Partisans in Congress

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Chief Executive ◽  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Democrats And Republicans

This chapter examines how the chief executive exploits partisans in Congress to improve his chances of obtaining support from lawmakers. One of the president’s most demanding and frustrating tasks is trying to move Congress to support his policies. Presidents are unlikely to change many congressional minds, but they can take advantage of members’ ideological predispositions or their proclivities to support their party leader. Understanding strategic position with Congress is the key to successful presidential leadership. The chapter first provides an overview of congressional support for the president from both Democrats and Republicans before discussing the president’s role as party leader. It also considers Lyndon B. Johnson’s experience in dealing with Congress and concludes by explaining how presidents such as Johnson and Ronald Reagan improve their chances of obtaining support in Congress by increasing the number of fellow party members in the legislature.

scholarly journals Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (50) ◽  
pp. e2102139118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Axelrod ◽  
Joshua J. Daymude ◽  
Stephanie Forrest
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Ideological Polarization ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Democrats And Republicans

Extreme polarization can undermine democracy by making compromise impossible and transforming politics into a zero-sum game. “Ideological polarization”—the extent to which political views are widely dispersed—is already strong among elites, but less so among the general public [N. McCarty, Polarization: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2019, pp. 50–68]. Strong mutual distrust and hostility between Democrats and Republicans in the United States, combined with the elites’ already strong ideological polarization, could lead to increasing ideological polarization among the public. The paper addresses two questions: 1) Is there a level of ideological polarization above which polarization feeds upon itself to become a runaway process? 2) If so, what policy interventions could prevent such dangerous positive feedback loops? To explore these questions, we present an agent-based model of ideological polarization that differentiates between the tendency for two actors to interact (“exposure”) and how they respond when interactions occur, positing that interaction between similar actors reduces their difference, while interaction between dissimilar actors increases their difference. Our analysis explores the effects on polarization of different levels of tolerance to other views, responsiveness to other views, exposure to dissimilar actors, multiple ideological dimensions, economic self-interest, and external shocks. The results suggest strategies for preventing, or at least slowing, the development of extreme polarization.

No Deal: Donald Trump’s Leadership of Congress

The Forum ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards III
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Strategic Plan ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
The Impact

AbstractDonald Trump entered office with aspirations for transformational policy change, much of which would have to be approved by Congress. So far, he and his supporters have been disappointed. Despite the president’s many unique characteristics, we can employ the framework of the president’s strategic position to explain the president’s lack of success. The president’s opportunity structure was mixed. Lacking a mandate but fortunate to serve in a unified government, Trump overestimated his public support, which was low, and Republican cohesion, which was imperfect. He also underestimated the impact of partisan polarization and Democratic opposition, which was strong. Moreover, the president lacked a strategic plan of his own, had few substantive proposals, and demonstrated little skill in garnering support.

Different Questions, Different Answers

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Taxation Policy ◽  
Relative Utility ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
Presidential Success ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Government Shutdown

This chapter examines the relative utility of the strategic position and persuasion perspectives in explaining the potential of presidential leadership by focusing on several prominent issues arising since Barack Obama’s reelection. In discussions of presidential success, we want to know the contribution of persuasion and whether other factors offer more powerful explanations. For his failures, we want to investigate whether a dependency on persuasion contributed to them, whether aspects of his strategic position were critical to the outcome, and whether we can gain analytical leverage by asking if the president understood and effectively exploited his strategic position. The chapter considers issues that share some key aspects of the president’s opportunity structure, including taxation policy, sequestration, gun control, and government shutdown. It shows that the strategic position perspective leads us to ask different questions regarding presidential leadership—and encourages us to arrive at different, and better, answers.

Radiological safety and assessment of the performance of X-ray systems in veterinary facilities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Economides ◽  
C.J. Hourdakis ◽  
C. Pafilis ◽  
G. Simantirakis ◽  
P. Tritakis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Radiation Protection ◽  
Atomic Energy Commission ◽  
Atomic Energy ◽  
Regulatory Control ◽  
Continuous Training ◽  
X Ray ◽  
The Public ◽  
Radiological Safety ◽  
High Level

This paper concerns an analysis regarding the performance of X-ray equipment as well as the radiological safety in veterinary facilities. Data were collected from 380 X-ray veterinary facilities countrywide during the on-site regulatory inspections carried out by the Greek Atomic Energy Commission. The analysis of the results shows that the majority of the veterinary radiographic systems perform within the acceptable limits; moreover, the design and shielding of X-ray rooms as well as the applied procedures ensure a high level of radiological safety for the practitioners, operators and the members of the public. An issue that requires specific attention in the optimization process for the proper implementation of veterinary radiology practices in terms of radiological safety is the continuous training of the personnel. The above findings and the regulatory experience gained were valuable decision-making elements regarding the type of the regulatory control of veterinary radiology practices in the new radiation protection framework.

Bid rigging in public procurement market according to the decisions of the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Konrad RÓŻOWICZ
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Consumer Protection ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Appeal Chamber ◽  
Interesting Issue ◽  
Market Control ◽  
The Public ◽  
Bid Rigging

Aim: In the practice of awarding public contracts, sometimes the behavior of market actors, instead of competing with other entities, are aimed at illegal cooperation, including bid rigging. The above shows that healthy competition is not possible without efficient market control. In public procurement market this control is, primarily, carried out by public procurement entities: the President of the Public Procurement Office (Prezes UZP) and the National Appeal Chamber (KIO), and furthermore by President od the Office of Competition (Prezes UOKiK) and Consumer Protection and the Court od Competition and Consumer Protection. and Consumer Protection (SOKiK). The interesting issue is how the activities of the President of Office of Competition and Consumer Protection targeted  to contend with bid rigging affects on the activities of President of the Public Procurement Office (Prezes UZP) or the National Appeal Chamber (KIO). Design / Research methods: analysis and comparison decisions/ judgment issued by the President of the Public Procurement Office, National Appeal Chamber, the President of  the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection and the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection. Conclusions: The analysis has shown that the existence of specificities in the activities of the decision-making bodies and the judgments examined. However, in keeping with the specificity of the forms and objectives of control, these entities should cooperate, to a greater extent than before. Expanding the scope of cooperation would make it possible to better contend with bid rigging without changing the competition protection model. The introduction of institutionalized instruments for cooperation between the authorities seems to be valuable in terms of system solutions. Value of the article: The main value of the article is the comparison of selectively selected decisions and judgments representative of the problem under consideration and their comparative analysis in order to achieve the research objectives. The article deals with issues relevant to both public procurement practitioners and the state bodies dealing with procurement matters.

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