Towards a pragmatic presidency exploring the waning of political time

Matthew Laing*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    9 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    In his landmark work The Politics Presidents Make, Stephen Skowronek concludes that an earlier cycle of presidential politics in America is fading. Calling this phenomenon the "waning of political time," he predicts the declining importance of the president as a source of political change in American politics, and makes the conjecture that in the future, presidents will act more pragmatically and will more frequently clash with office holders in other political institutions. Applying hypotheses recently advanced by Curt Nichols and Adam Myers, this article considers some additional challenges to presidential authority that complement Skowronek's original thesis. Through a comparison of the presidencies of Obama and Ronald Reagan, the article also illustrates the relevance of the waning-of-political-time thesis to politics today.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)234-259
    Number of pages26
    JournalPolity
    Volume44
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Apr 2012

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