Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal by Stephen Skowronek.
In my Modern Presidency class, we read Skowronek's article by the same title and his analytical framework really stood out when I took the class and has continued to stuck with me since the class ended. Simply put, Skowronek's framework shifts the study of the presidency from the typical linear, sequential, chronological pattern into what can be described as a life cycle of a political regime or coalition. For example, Skowronek's original article compared the Jacksonian and New Deal regimes.
Presidents Jackson and Roosevelt are the beginnings of their respective regimes who came to power as a result of the American public rejecting and displacing of a long-standing regime (Jeffersonian for Jackson and the Prosperity/Do-Nothing Republicans of the 1920s for FDR). In the middle, Skowronek compares Presidents Polk and Kennedy as those charged with maintaining extending their regimes. Finally, Presidents Pierce and Carter are compared as the two presidents who saw the their respective regimes come to an end as the coalitions fractured to a point where they could no longer govern and gave way to a new regime (the Jacksonian regime pretty much ended but could have possibly been replaced by a Lincoln regime had his presidency not been cut short and the Reagan regime replaced the New Deal Coalition).
This is a book of six essays that spell out Skrownek's main thesis of presidential leadership in political time. I've only read his initial article that compared the presidents above which as I mentioned, made a huge impression on me. I'm really excited to learn more about how recent presidents are placed in the political time model.
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