"Chapter 3: The Emergence of the Postmodern Presidency"

Richard Rose

in

The Post-Modern President: The White House Meets the World

"The Constitution today incorporates elements of two contrasting eras, the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. It was written when government was small and distances were great. Poltics was local....Today, the White House is the home of a leader who sees the whole world as his bailiwick".

"As the world has gotten smaller and other countries have grown greater, the postmodern President finds that international events increasingly influence his domestic concerns".

"The emergence of the postmodern Presidency requires America's leader to respond to tw very different audiences: the domestic audience on which popular authority rests, and the international system that influences the effectiveness of major White House policies".

FROM THE TRADITIONAL TO THE POSTMODERN PRESIDENCY

"The Constitution tells us half of whatwe need to know about the Presidency".

"The constitutional formulas describing the President's Office have not altered in two centuries, but the practice of the Presidency has altered greatly....Because the Constitution leaves so muh open to debate, a contemporary President can justify his actions by choosing, among several contrasting constitutional interpretations, the one that suits his immediate political needs".

"The traditional Presidency was intended to be a do-nothing office because the Founding Fathers were on guard against an autocratic monarch or authoritarian leader in the style of Napolean".

"The traditional do-nothing Presidency lasted for more than a century because there was very little that the White House needed or was expected to do; the prevailing doctrine was that the best government governed least".

"For most of the history of the United States, the President has abstained from foreign affairs....While the White House was occasionally compelled to negotiate with foreign powers, this was regarded as an exception to the usual practice of avoiding entanglement with foreign nations".

"The doctrine of the modern presidency expresses a fundamental shift in political expectations in the White House, in Congress, and in public opinion. By contrast with the traditional presidency, the modern President is expected to
1. Propose legislation and make budget recommendations to Congress and secure congressional endorsement of his proposals.
2. Be active in defending and advancing America's interests abroad.
3. Be a visible national leader, projecting personality and ideas through the media.
4. Command the political and national resources to meet these expectations.

"The Roosevelt administration started a process that has transformed the resources of the federal government".

"The modern President's resources for influencing public opinion have grown too".

"As resources have grown, so expectations of the President have grown. What was exceptional before FDR has become normal since".

"Modern Presidents have invariably put foreign policy first...."

"The defining characteristic of the postmodern President is simply stated: The resources of the White House are not sufficient to meet all of the President's international responsibilities".

"A postmodern President no longer enjoys isolation from other nations. whereas a traditional President could ignore the great powers of Europe, and a modern President could offer American leadership on terms that other nations were too weak to reject".

"'America's diminishing capacity to control events unilaterally results not from the failure of American postwar policy, but from its success'. American eforts to revive the world economy and build new mutual security alliances have contributed to conditions in which other nations have prospered too".

"Jimmy Carter has the unenviable distinction of being the first completely postmodern President. The Carter administration was upset by inflation at home, oil price rises, the seizure of Americans as hostages in the Middle East, and the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. In retrospect, the problems of the Carter administration appear less a reflection of the man in the Oval Office and more as symptoms of a structural shift from a modern to a postmodern President".

"While the traditional President did not participate in the international political system and the modern President could dominate it, the postmodern President has no choice but to cooperate and compete, since economic and national security problems are not contained within national boundaries".

"The great challenge to the postmodern President is to be both responsive and effective".