Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda

Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda PDF Author: Andrew B. Whitford
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801893461
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The bully pulpit is one of the modern president's most powerful tools—and one of the most elusive to measure. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda uses the war on drugs as a case study to explore whether and how a president's public statements affect the formation and carrying out of policy in the United States. When in June 1971 President Richard M. Nixon initiated the modern war on drugs, he did so with rhetorical flourish and force, setting in motion a federal policy that has been largely followed for more than three decades. Using qualitative and quantitative measurements, Andrew B. Whitford and Jeff Yates examine presidential proclamations about battling illicit drug use and their effect on the enforcement of anti-drug laws at the national, state, and local level. They analyze specific pronouncements and the social and political contexts in which they are made; examine the relationship between presidential leadership in the war on drugs and the policy agenda of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorneys; and assess how closely a president's drug policy is implemented in local jurisdictions. In evaluating the data, this sophisticated study of presidential leadership shows clearly that with careful consideration of issues and pronouncements a president can effectively harness the bully pulpit to drive policy.

Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda

Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda PDF Author: Andrew B. Whitford
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801893461
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book

Book Description
The bully pulpit is one of the modern president's most powerful tools—and one of the most elusive to measure. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda uses the war on drugs as a case study to explore whether and how a president's public statements affect the formation and carrying out of policy in the United States. When in June 1971 President Richard M. Nixon initiated the modern war on drugs, he did so with rhetorical flourish and force, setting in motion a federal policy that has been largely followed for more than three decades. Using qualitative and quantitative measurements, Andrew B. Whitford and Jeff Yates examine presidential proclamations about battling illicit drug use and their effect on the enforcement of anti-drug laws at the national, state, and local level. They analyze specific pronouncements and the social and political contexts in which they are made; examine the relationship between presidential leadership in the war on drugs and the policy agenda of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorneys; and assess how closely a president's drug policy is implemented in local jurisdictions. In evaluating the data, this sophisticated study of presidential leadership shows clearly that with careful consideration of issues and pronouncements a president can effectively harness the bully pulpit to drive policy.

Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda

Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda PDF Author: Andrew B. Whitford
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421401711
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
The bully pulpit is one of the modern president's most powerful tools—and one of the most elusive to measure. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda uses the war on drugs as a case study to explore whether and how a president's public statements affect the formation and carrying out of policy in the United States. When in June 1971 President Richard M. Nixon initiated the modern war on drugs, he did so with rhetorical flourish and force, setting in motion a federal policy that has been largely followed for more than three decades. Using qualitative and quantitative measurements, Andrew B. Whitford and Jeff Yates examine presidential proclamations about battling illicit drug use and their effect on the enforcement of anti-drug laws at the national, state, and local level. They analyze specific pronouncements and the social and political contexts in which they are made; examine the relationship between presidential leadership in the war on drugs and the policy agenda of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorneys; and assess how closely a president's drug policy is implemented in local jurisdictions. In evaluating the data, this sophisticated study of presidential leadership shows clearly that with careful consideration of issues and pronouncements a president can effectively harness the bully pulpit to drive policy.

Does It Matter What Presidents Say?

Does It Matter What Presidents Say? PDF Author: Ph. D. Lawrence, Adam
Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing
ISBN: 9783838341651
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Although scholars have long recognized the president's pre-eminent status as an agenda-setter, there is surprisingly little evidence to suggest that presidents can and do influence the public agenda. While a modest literature reveals presidential speeches as important determinants of the public agenda, the assumption that rhetoric matters-commonly made by students of the presidency- has largely been unaccompanied by the support of empirical evidence. Based on an extensive content analysis of State of the Union Addresses from 1946 to 2003, this work considers in three separate studies the influence of presidential rhetoric as a tool for setting the public agenda. The first considers the influence of presidential rhetoric on aggregate-level evaluations of the salience of 1,113 issues discussed by 11 presidents from 1946 to 2003. The second study estimates the influence of several moderators of the relationship between presidential rhetoric and the public agenda. The third study, an experimental analysis, examines the influence of presidential rhetoric used by President George W. Bush in his discussion of the issue of the economy.

The Party Politics of Presidential Rhetoric

The Party Politics of Presidential Rhetoric PDF Author: Amnon Cavari
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107150035
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
This book develops a theory of presidential public leadership taking into account the partisan nature of the political debate and the role of presidents.

The Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric

The Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric PDF Author: Martin J. Medhurst
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781585446278
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Culminating a decade of conferences that have explored presidential speech, The Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric assesses progress and suggests directions for both the practice of presidential speech and its study. In Part One, following an analytic review of the field by Martin Medhurst, contributors address the state of the art in their own areas of expertise. Roderick P. Hart then summarizes their work in the course of his rebuttal of an argument made by political scientist George Edwards: that presidential rhetoric lacks political impact. Part Two of the volume consists of the forward-looking reports of six task forces, comprising more than forty scholars, charged with outlining the likely future course of presidential rhetoric, as well as the major questions scholars should ask about it and the tools at their disposal. The Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric will serve as a pivotal work for students and scholars of public discourse and the presidency who seek to understand the shifting landscape of American political leadership.

The Rhetorical Presidency

The Rhetorical Presidency PDF Author: Jeffrey K. Tulis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888360
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Modern presidents regularly appeal over the heads of Congress to the people at large to generate support for public policies. The Rhetorical Presidency makes the case that this development, born at the outset of the twentieth century, is the product of conscious political choices that fundamentally transformed the presidency and the meaning of American governance. Now with a new foreword by Russell Muirhead and a new afterword by the author, this landmark work probes political pathologies and analyzes the dilemmas of presidential statecraft. Extending a tradition of American political writing that begins with The Federalist and continues with Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government, The Rhetorical Presidency remains a pivotal work in its field.

The Presidency and Immigration Policy

The Presidency and Immigration Policy PDF Author: Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003801927
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This comprehensive analysis of presidential immigration rhetoric quantifies the frequency, tone, and efficacy of public mentions of immigrants and immigration policy by the presidents from Washington through Biden. The book also explores the intersection of the presidential role with that of the other key actors in the immigration policy system—notably the press, the public, and Congress. For students of immigration studies, presidential studies, and political communication, this book also poses the question of which is of the greatest significance to the immigration policy agenda: presidential leadership making immigration a top priority or existing legislative support for comprehensive immigration reform.

Political Rhetoric

Political Rhetoric PDF Author: Mary E. Stuckey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135149872X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Rhetoric is among the most important and least understood elements of presidential leadership. Presidents have always wielded rhetoric as one tool of governance—and that rhetoric was always intended to facilitate political ends, such as image building, persuasion of the mass public, and inter-branch government persuasion. But as mass media has grown and then fragmented, as the federal bureaucracy has continued to both expand and calcify, and as partisanship has heightened tensions both within Congress and between Congress and the Executive, rhetoric is an increasingly important element of presidential governance. Scholars have derived ways to explain how these developments and the presidents' use of rhetoric have contributed to and detracted from the health of American democracy. This briefing book offers a succinct reflection on the ways in which historical developments have encouraged the use of political rhetoric. It explores strategies of "going public" to provide some leverage over the political system and the lessons one might derive from these choices. This essential analysis, written for lay readers, scholars, students, and future presidents, is the first in Transaction's innovative Presidential Briefings series. Mary E. Stuckey covers the scholarly literature with authority and offers examples of rhetoric that have lasting influence.

Rethinking the Rhetorical Presidency

Rethinking the Rhetorical Presidency PDF Author: Jeffrey Friedman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135755914
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
In The Rhetorical Presidency, Jeffrey Tulis argues that the president’s relationship to the public has changed dramatically since the Constitution was enacted: while previously the president avoided any discussions of public policy so as to avoid demagoguery, the president is now expected to go directly to the public, using all the tools of rhetoric to influence public policy. This has effectively created a "second" Constitution that has been layered over, and in part contradicts, the original one. In our volume, scholars from different subfields of political science extend Tulis’s perspective to the judiciary and Congress; locate the origins of the constitutional change in the Progressive Era; highlight the role of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and the mass media in transforming the presidency; discuss the nature of demagoguery and whether, in fact, rhetoric is undesirable; and relate the rhetorical presidency to the public’s ignorance of the workings of a government more complex than the Founders imagined. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society.

In the Public Domain

In the Public Domain PDF Author: Lori Cox Han
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 079148260X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
The "public presidency"—how presidents rely on the mass media, public opinion, and various communication strategies—has become an increasingly important aspect of presidential governance and leadership during the past two decades. In the Public Domain gathers together noted presidency and communication scholars to explore the relationship between the president and the American public, the current state of the "public presidency," and the challenges that recent presidents have faced in developing an effective means of communicating and maintaining a strong presidential image. Specific topics include: how presidents use public leadership to pursue their policy goals and objectives; the importance of public opinion, rhetorical strategies, and public activities; external factors such as party politics and news media coverage; the cultivation of presidential legacy; and access to documents in presidential libraries.