Character and Competence at the Top: Gerald Ford Becomes President and Pardons Richard Nixon

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Terry Newell

On August 9,1974, Gerald Ford took the oath as president when Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of Watergate.   Ford's inaugural remarks and the actions that followed, aimed at restoring trust in government and gaining the legitimacy he needed to confront national problems, rested on both his character and his leadership talent.  His public approval rating soared.  Thirty-one days later, Ford spoke to the nation again, announcing his pardon of the disgraced former president.  That speech and the actions connected to it also depended on Ford's character and leadership skills.  Yet, his approval plummeted, dooming his prospects to win the 1976 election. This one-month period offers important lessons for public leaders who want to both be good and do good.  Ford succeeded in the first speech and failed in the second.   The ability to articulate a transcendent public purpose, persuade the public in a compelling way, and master the art of building political support proved decisive in both cases.   Also decisive was his character and the way he sought to call forth the moral character of the nation.   

2021 ◽  
pp. 205789112199169
Author(s):  
Kana Inata

Constitutional monarchies have proved to be resilient, and some have made substantive political interventions even though their positions are mostly hereditary, without granted constitutional channels to do so. This article examines how constitutional monarchs can influence political affairs and what impact royal intervention can have on politics. I argue that constitutional monarchs affect politics indirectly by influencing the preferences of the public who have de jure power to influence political leaders. The analyses herein show that constitutional monarchs do not indiscriminately intervene in politics, but their decisions to intervene reflect the public’s preferences. First, constitutional monarchs with little public approval become self-restraining and do not attempt to assert their political preferences. Second, they are more likely to intervene in politics when the public is less satisfied about the incumbent government. These findings are illustrated with historical narratives regarding the political involvement of King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand in the 2000s.


Author(s):  
Debora Di Gioacchino ◽  
Laura Sabani ◽  
Stefano Usai

AbstractThis paper provides a simple model of hierarchical education to study the political determination of public education spending and its allocation between different tiers of education. The model integrates private education decisions by allowing parents, who are differentiated according to income and human capital, to top up public expenditures with private transfers. We identify four groups of households with conflicting preferences over the the size of the public education budget and its allocation. In equilibrium, public education budget, private expenditures and expenditure allocation among different tiers of education, depend on which group of households is in power and on country-specific features such as income inequality and intergenerational persistence in education. By running a cluster analysis on 32 OECD countries, we seek to establish if distinctive ‘education regimes’, akin to those identified in the theoretical analysis, could be discerned. Our main finding is that a high intergenerational persistence in education might foster the establishment of education regimes in which the size and the allocation of the public budget among different tiers of education prevent a stable and significant increase of the population graduation rate, thus plunging the country in a ‘low education’ trap.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 3343
Author(s):  
Seungkook Roh ◽  
Hae-Gyung Geong

This article extends the coverage of the trust–acceptability model to a new situation of nuclear phase-out by investigating the effect of trust on the public acceptance of nuclear power, with South Korea as the research setting. Through the structural equation modeling of a nationwide survey dataset from South Korea, we examined the effects of the public’s trust in the various actors related to nuclear power on their perceptions of the benefits and risks of nuclear power and their acceptance of nuclear power. Contrary to previous studies’ findings, in South Korea, under a nuclear phase-out policy by the government, trust in government revealed a negative impact on the public acceptance of nuclear power. Trust in environmental non-governmental groups also showed a negative effect on nuclear power acceptance. In contrast, trust in nuclear energy authority and trust in nuclear academia both had positive effects. In all cases, the effect of a trust variable on nuclear power acceptance was at least partially accounted for by the trust’s indirect effects through benefit perception and risk perception. These findings strengthen the external validity of the trust–acceptability model and provide implications for both researchers and practitioners.


1974 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 402
Author(s):  
Dave M. O'Neill ◽  
John Kenneth Galbraith
Keyword(s):  

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marinus Schoeman

Virtuosity and greatness: Aspects of Hannah Arendt’s “extra-moral” ethic of virtueThis article focuses on the “extra-moral” character of Arendt’s view of action and virtuousness. Particular attention is given to her a-teleological, performative (dramaturgical) view of action, which was inspired by the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as certain aspects of Renaissance humanism, especially Machiavelli’s idea of virtue. According to this view, virtue relates to the virtuosity and “greatness” of the actor’s words and deeds, which in turn presupposes an agonistic ethos where different actors constantly try to surpass one another and to achieve exemplary status. This implies that virtue, or a truly ethical existence, has nothing to do with one’s inner feelings and intentions. Neither can it be measured against some transcendent norm or set of norms. Rather, it manifests itself in the performing of great and virtuosic actions in the presence of others. These actions thus depend on the existence of a vigorous public sphere, while at the same time being co-constitutive of the public sphere, helping to sustain it and keeping it alive. I


Author(s):  
Evgenij Derzhivitskij ◽  
Vadim Perov ◽  
Andrey Polozhentsev

The article examines how to apply moral and philosophical reflection in the commission of a crime. An action is the result of solving an equation with many variables. This is overcoming legal, moral, philosophical, and emotional contradictions. However, modern legal and ethical thought closes the way for understanding its causes and motives. As an example, we examine the conspiracy and murder of Caesar in Rome in 44 BC. The article reveals objective differences in the understanding of morality in antiquity and in modern ethical science. Here we analyze the philosophical and ethical grounds that will help solve this dilemma. First of all, we considered the philosophical and political works and letters of Cicero. His reasoning about the duties of a citizen might have influenced Brutus' decision to participate in the conspiracy against Caesar and accept the moral choice as his fate. Brutus did not act as a murderer, but as an exponent of public purpose and public utility, for whom the purpose of the act was the public good, incompatible with tyranny.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Mochtar Haboddin

<div><p class="ABSTRAKen">The purpose of this article was to see how local leaders use populist policies to gain political support and maintain their power. This populist policy could be seen from the workings of several local leaders such as Jokowi while leading Jakarta and Solo, Risma in Surabaya, Ridwan Kamil in Bandung and others. To see the extent to which local leaders apply populist policy, this article used a literature-based qualitative research method and used the theory of populist leadership style as an analysis knife. Described from this article that local leaders would use populist policies in an effort to maintain power. In maintaining this power, a populist policy was needed as a strategic way to build the legitimacy of its power in the eyes of the public and politicians in parliament.</p></div>


2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
Author(s):  
Collective WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe established the European Immunization Week (EIW, http://www.euro.who.int/vaccine) in 2005 for three reasons: 1) to raise public awareness of the benefits of immunisation, 2) to support national immunisation systems, and 3) to provide a framework for mobilising public and political support for governmental efforts to protect the public through universal childhood immunisation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 175797592110357
Author(s):  
Ilona Kickbusch

COVID-19 has shown us clearly that the world must commit to a transformative approach that promotes health and wellbeing. Living in the Anthropocene – an epoch defined by human impact on our ecosystems – moves us into unknown territory. The challenge is to find a way of living that aims to meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. We will require foresight, agility and resilience to be well prepared. The global risks we face are enormous and they are interconnected – yet the opportunity to accelerate change for the better is extraordinary as well. We have models, knowledge and technologies at our disposal that could significantly improve health and wellbeing and create fairer and more sustainable societies – yet they have not been used widely to serve the public purpose and to address inequities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marija Karanikić Mirić ◽  
Tatjana Jevremović Petrović

The subject of this paper is the special legal regime for administrative contracts under the recently enacted Serbian Law on General Administrative Procedure of 2016. We offer a comprehensive analysis of the new statutory rules, and examine their relationship to the general rules and principles of Serbian contract law. In addition, we identify the main shortcomings of the new regime, especially in the context of the lack of any statutory, scholarly and judicial typology of administrative contracts in Serbia. Furthermore, we highlight the lack of references to the notions of public interest, public purpose or public needs in the statutory definition of administrative contracts. This is cause for concern, since only the need to protect the public interest could justify the new statutory provisions, which significantly improve the contractual position of a public body as a contracting party in relation to the position of a private entity as the other party in administrative contracts. There is as yet no case law pertaining to administrative contracts in Serbia. This is why we turn to practical experience in the Croatian legal system, which is sufficiently similar and historically connected to Serbia via a shared Yugoslav heritage. We also consider German and French legal models, since they traditionally serve as comparative points of reference for Serbian legal scholars, judges and law makers.


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