Download or read book Presidential Decision Making written by Roger B. Porter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1982-12-30 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This inside account of decision making in the White House describes the organizational challenges the President faces. The Economic Policy Board was one of the most systematic and sustained attempts to organize advice for the President in recent decades. The author examines the Board's deliberations over three controversial policy issues, drawing on scores of interviews with cabinet officials and career civil servants.
Download or read book Risk and Presidential Decision making written by Luca Trenta and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims at gauging whether the nature of US foreign policy decision-making has changed after the Cold War as radically as a large body of literature seems to suggest, and develops a new framework to interpret presidential decision-making in foreign policy. It locates the study of risk in US foreign policy in a wider intellectual landscape that draws on contemporary debates in historiography, international relations and Presidential studies. Based on developments in the health and environment literature, the book identifies the President as the ultimate risk-manager, demonstrating how a President is called to perform a delicate balancing act between risks on the domestic/political side and risks on the strategic/international side. Every decision represents a ‘risk vs. risk trade-off,’ in which the management of one ‘target risk’ leads to the development ‘countervailing risks.’ The book applies this framework to the study three major crises in US foreign policy: the Cuban Missile Crisis, the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, and the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995. Each case-study results from substantial archival research and over twenty interviews with policymakers and academics, including former President Jimmy Carter and former Senator Bob Dole. This book is ideal for postgraduate researchers and academics in US foreign policy, foreign policy decision-making and the US Presidency as well as Departments and Institutes dealing with the study of risk in the social sciences. The case studies will also be of great use to undergraduate students.
Download or read book Presidential Leadership Illness and Decision Making written by Rose McDermott and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-12-03 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the impact of medical and psychological illness on foreign policy decision making. Illness provides specific, predictable, and recognizable shifts in attention, time perspective, cognitive capacity, judgment, and emotion, which systematically affect impaired leaders. In particular, this book discusses the ways in which processes related to aging, physical and psychological illness, and addiction influence decision making. This book provides detailed analysis of four cases among the American presidency. Woodrow Wilson's October 1919 stroke affected his behavior during the Senate fight over ratifying the League of Nations. Franklin Roosevelt's severe coronary disease influenced his decisions concerning the conduct of war in the Pacific from 1943–1945 in particular. John Kennedy's illnesses and treatments altered his behavior at the 1961 Vienna conference with Soviet Premier Khrushchev. And Nixon's psychological impairments biased his decisions regarding the covert bombing of Cambodia in 1969–1970.
Download or read book Decision making in the White House written by Theodore C. Sorensen and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is based on the Gino Speranza Lectures for 1963, delivered at Columbia University on April 18 and May 9, 1963"--P. [vii].
Download or read book The Last Card written by Timothy Andrews Sayle and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the real story of how George W. Bush came to double-down on Iraq in the highest stakes gamble of his entire presidency. Drawing on extensive interviews with nearly thirty senior officials, including President Bush himself, The Last Card offers an unprecedented look into the process by which Bush overruled much of the military leadership and many of his trusted advisors, and authorized the deployment of roughly 30,000 additional troops to the warzone in a bid to save Iraq from collapse in 2007. The adoption of a new counterinsurgency strategy and surge of new troops into Iraq altered the American posture in the Middle East for a decade to come. In The Last Card we have access to the deliberations among the decision-makers on Bush's national security team as they embarked on that course. In their own words, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and others, recount the debates and disputes that informed the process as President Bush weighed the historical lessons of Vietnam against the perceived strategic imperatives in the Middle East. For a president who had earlier vowed never to dictate military strategy to generals, the deliberations in the Oval Office and Situation Room in 2006 constituted a trying and fateful moment. Even a president at war is bound by rules of consensus and limited by the risk of constitutional crisis. What is to be achieved in the warzone must also be possible in Washington, D.C. Bush risked losing public esteem and courted political ruin by refusing to disengage from the costly war in Iraq. The Last Card is a portrait of leadership—firm and daring if flawed—in the Bush White House. The personal perspectives from men and women who served at the White House, Foggy Bottom, the Pentagon, and in Baghdad, are complemented by critical assessments written by leading scholars in the field of international security. Taken together, the candid interviews and probing essays are a first draft of the history of the surge and new chapter in the history of the American presidency.
Download or read book Paying Attention to Foreign Affairs written by Thomas Knecht and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-09-10 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do American presidents consider public opinion when making foreign policy decisions? In a democracy, it is generally assumed that citizen preferences inform public policy. For a variety of reasons, however, foreign policy has always posed a difficult challenge for democratic governance. In Paying Attention to Foreign Affairs, Thomas Knecht offers new insights into the relationship between public opinion and U.S. foreign policy. He does so by shifting our focus away from the opinions that Americans hold and toward the issues that grab the public’s attention. Policy making under the glare of public scrutiny differs from policy making when no one is looking. As public interest in foreign policy increases, the political stakes also rise. A highly attentive public can then force presidents to choose foreign policies that are less politically risky but usually less effective. By tracking the ebb and flow of public attention to foreign policy, this book offers a method of predicting when presidents are likely to lead, follow, or simply ignore the American public.
Download or read book Presidential Decision Making Adrift written by David Wells Engstrom and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1997 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The subject of refugee policy has generated considerable public debate during the past decade. In this case study of presidential decision-making, David W. Engstrom analyzes the Carter Administration's response to the Mariel boatlift from Cuba in 1979. Engstrom argues that a faulty decision making structure and ignorance of the historic dynamics of Cuban immigration contributed to the government's mishandling of the refugee crisis. More generally, he explores the ways in which refugee policy is shaped by foreign policy concerns, domestic politics, and economic circumstances. This important book will be of interest to students and scholars of Latin American studies, foreign policy, and immigration and refugee policy.
Download or read book Making Foreign Policy written by David Mitchell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 2005. David Mitchell provides a better understanding of the role presidents play in the decision-making process in terms of their influence on two key steps in the process: deliberation and outcome of policy making. The events that have taken place in relation to the Bush administration's decisions to fight the war on terrorism and invade Iraq highlight how important it is to understand the president's role in formulating policy. This influential study presents an advisory system theory of decision-making to examine cases of presidential policy formulation drawn from the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations. Easily accessible to scholars, graduates and advanced undergraduates interested in US foreign policy or foreign policy analysis, presidential studies, and bureaucracy and public administrations scholars, and to practitioners and those with a general interest in International Relations.
Download or read book Why Presidents Fail written by Richard M. Pious and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2008-07-25 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presidents are surrounded by political strategists and White House counsel who presumably know enough to avoid making the same mistakes as their predecessors. Why, then, do the same kinds of presidential failures occur over and over again? Why Presidents Fail answers this question by examining presidential fiascos, quagmires, and risky business-the kind of failure that led President Kennedy to groan after the Bay of Pigs invasion, 'How could I have been so stupid?' In this book, Richard M. Pious looks at nine cases that have become defining events in presidencies from Dwight D. Eisenhower and the U-2 Flights to George W. Bush and Iraqi WMDs. He uses these cases to draw generalizations about presidential power, authority, rationality, and legitimacy. And he raises questions about the limits of presidential decision-making, many of which fly in the face of the conventional wisdom about the modern presidency.
Download or read book Shame and Humiliation written by Blema S. Steinberg and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 1996 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blema Steinberg adopts a psychoanalytical approach in her examination of the decision making of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Dwight Eisenhower during the Vietnam War. She argues that personality traits, such as narcissism, influenced critical decisions they made about U.S. intervention in Vietnam.
Download or read book Who Leads Whom written by Brandice Canes-Wrone and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who Leads Whom? is an ambitious study that addresses some of the most important questions in contemporary American politics: Do presidents pander to public opinion by backing popular policy measures that they believe would actually harm the country? Why do presidents "go public" with policy appeals? And do those appeals affect legislative outcomes? Analyzing the actions of modern presidents ranging from Eisenhower to Clinton, Brandice Canes-Wrone demonstrates that presidents' involvement of the mass public, by putting pressure on Congress, shifts policy in the direction of majority opinion. More important, she also shows that presidents rarely cater to the mass citizenry unless they already agree with the public's preferred course of action. With contemporary politics so connected to the pulse of the American people, Who Leads Whom? offers much-needed insight into how public opinion actually works in our democratic process. Integrating perspectives from presidential studies, legislative politics, public opinion, and rational choice theory, this theoretical and empirical inquiry will appeal to a wide range of scholars of American political processes.
Download or read book Mending the Broken Dialogue written by Janine A. Davidson and published by Council on Foreign Relations. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although friction often frustrates civil-military relations, it is an inevitable and important part of the policymaking process. The system breaks down when there is too much friction or too little: when civilian and military leaders descend into open conflict or when one side acquiesces to the other and embraces groupthink. The system works best when both sides in the civil-military dialogue are able to speak candidly in an environment that fosters empathy and empowerment.
Download or read book Crisis Resolution written by Richard G. Head and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-20 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the nuclear era, the use of even low levels of force risks catastrophe for all mankind. Yet military force remains an important element of political strategy, and control and coordination of its use with other instruments of national power is of vital importance. The authors of this book, examining two crises that occurred during the Ford admini
Download or read book Vicious Cycle written by Constantine J. Spiliotes and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation. American presidents enter office ready to enact a policy-making agenda that will satisfy partisan interests and facilitate reelection to a second term. Economic circumstances, however, may catch presidents in a vicious cycle of economic growth and inflation versus recession and unemployment. Faced with responsibility for the nation's economic health, presidents are often forced to make tradeoffs between pursuing political objectives and stabilizing the economy. Vicious Cycle provides a theoretical framework for explaining how presidents pursue partisan and electoral objectives in office while simultaneously managing the nation's economy. With an approach that bridges several literatures in presidential studies and political economy, Constantine J. Spiliotes develops an econometric model of postwar presidential decision making in the American political economy and examines its relationship to economic decision making in four presidencies. These extensively documented case studies -- of presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, Carter, and Reagan -- offer variation across several analytic dimensions: temporal, partisan, electoral, and institutional. Spiliotes concludes that tradeoffs between political objectives and institutional responsibility are driven by a transformation in the nature of the American presidency, from an office in which decision making is anchored in partisan accountability to one constrained by the chief executive's institutional mission. Spiliotes's work contributes to a fuller understanding of the presidency and political economy and the methodologies that elucidate them.
Download or read book Presidential Leadership written by George C. Edwards and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-01-24 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic text on the American presidency analyzes the institution and the presidents who hold the office through the key lens of leadership. Edwards, Mayer, and Wayne explain the leadership dilemma presidents face and their institutional, political, and personal capacities to meet it. Two models of presidential leadership help us understand the institution: one in which a strong president dominates the political environment as a director of change, and another in which the president performs a more limited role as facilitator of change. Each model provides an insightful perspectives to better understand leadership in the modern presidency and to evaluate the performance of individual presidents. With no simple formula for presidential success, and no partisan perspective driving the analysis, the authors help us understand that presidents and citizens alike must understand the nature of presidential leadership in a pluralistic system in which separate institutions share powers. This fully revised thirteenth edition is fully updated through the Biden administration, with recent policy developments, the 2022 midterm elections, changes to the media environment, and the latest data.
Download or read book Against the President written by Mark J. White and published by Ivan R. Dee Publisher. This book was released on 2007 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With a historian's insight, Mr. White explores the arguments of Harry Hopkins and Joseph Davies to Truman on the knotty postwar problem of Poland; of Henry Wallace on relations with Russia during the same administration; of Charles Wilson on the origins of the Vietnam War under Eisenhower; of Adlai Stevenson on Cuba during the Kennedy years; and of George Ball on Vietnam under Lyndon Johnson." "Altogether Mr. White fashions a provocative interpretation of America's role in the cold war and a number of questions about the potential effectiveness of policies that might have been. The relevance of his findings to today's situation in Iraq, and to the absence of dissent on official policy within the Bush administration, need scarcely be more apparent."--Jacket.
Download or read book Honest Broker written by John P. Burke and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the history of the office of national security in the United States from its inception, describing how the role of the national security advisor to the president has evolved between the 1950s and 2000s, and discusses the influence of the national security advisor on the commander in chief's decisions.
