The second edition of this classic work adds a new chapter on Barack Obama and updates coverage of the end of the George W. Bush administration. Presidential scholar Erwin C. Hargrove extends his analytical framework of presidential effectiveness to show how Obama combines eventful leadership with pragmatism to move the nation forward in an intensely polarized partisan environment. Features of the textbook: Uses an analytical framework to assess historical context, personal skills and attributes, and the ability to "make a difference" in each of ten presidencies. Four presidents are judged to be "event-making" leaders: Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush. Six presidents are assessed as "eventful" leaders: JFK, Ford, Carter, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama. As much a study of leadership as an analysis of ten presidencies, this book adds to our understanding in political science, history, and public administration and management.

Interviews with ten former chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers--from the Truman to the Carter administrations--are gathered in this book to examine the relationship between economic advisers and the president and the institutional relationships among the CEA, executive departments, and federal financial agencies. The interviews also reconstruct major presidential decisions since the establishment of the CEA, such as the 1964 tax cut, the 1971 wage and price freeze, and presidential strategies for managing inflation and recession. In a preface to each interview, the editors analyze the conditions for CEA effectiveness, look at how well the advice of the Council has conformed to the presidential world view, and pinpoint the distribution of responsibility for policy analysis and advice within successive administrations.

Every four years the American public goes to the polls in hopes of electing a hero to the presidency, trying to find someone larger than life. But heroes are hard to find and sometimes they turn out to be villains. Senior presidential scholar Erwin Hargrove recommends that we shift our sights to electing an effective president instead, and here he shows us how to assess effective presidencies. To address the central question of whether presidents make a difference, Hargrove asks about the most important things each president attempted. He finds that much of the time, "eventful" leadership prevails, but that some presidents may be judged to be "event-making" for good or ill. As George W. Bush has demonstrated, event- making leaders run great risks-sometimes challenging the Constitution-even as they attempt greatness. By contrast, effective presidents combine eventful leadership with a modulated sense of personal ambition, as Barack Obama illustrates. Hargrove examines this winning combination in light of historical context and a fine gauge of personal skills and attributes. Reviewing eventful and event-making presidencies of the last 50 years, Hargrove comes down on the side of effectiveness over the special effects of the pyrotechnic presidencies of the past. The second edition of this classic work adds a new chapter on Barack Obama and updates coverage of the end of the George W. Bush administration. Presidential scholar Erwin Hargrove extends his analytical framework of presidential effectiveness to show how Obama combines eventful leadership with pragmatism in moving the nation forward in an intensely polarized partisan environment.

Every four years the American public goes to the polls in hopes of electing a hero to the presidency, trying to find someone larger than life. But heroes are hard to find and sometimes they turn out to be villains. Senior presidential scholar Erwin Hargrove recommends that we shift our sights to electing an effective president instead, and here he shows us how to assess effective presidencies. To address the central question of whether presidents make a difference, Hargrove asks about the most important things each president attempted. He finds that much of the time, "eventful" leadership prevails, but that some presidents may be judged to be "event-making" for good or ill. As George W. Bush has demonstrated, event making leaders run great risks-sometimes challenging the Constitution-even as they attempt greatness. By contrast, effective presidents combine eventful leadership with a modulated sense of personal ambition. Hargrove examines this winning combination in light of historical context and a fine gauge of personal skills and attributes. Reviewing eventful and event-making presidencies of the last fifty years, Hargrove comes down on the side of effectiveness over the special effects of pyrotechnic presidencies like the current one.

Interviews with ten former chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers--from the Truman to the Carter administrations--are gathered in this book to examine the relationship between economic advisers and the president and the institutional relationships among the CEA, executive departments, and federal financial agencies. The interviews also reconstruct major presidential decisions since the establishment of the CEA, such as the 1964 tax cut, the 1971 wage and price freeze, and presidential strategies for managing inflation and recession. In a preface to each interview, the editors analyze the conditions for CEA effectiveness, look at how well the advice of the Council has conformed to the presidential world view, and pinpoint the distribution of responsibility for policy analysis and advice within successive administrations.

Jimmy Carter was, according to Erwin Hargrove, the first modern Democratic president to be substantially ahead of the party coalition. Concerned with issues of the future -- inflation, the need for tax reform, energy shortages -- Carter anticipated many questions that are only now being addressed, nearly a decade after his troubled tenure in office.

The years 1976 to 1980 were difficult years for a Democrat to be president -- especially difficult for a southern moderate who viewed the world in Wilsonian terms and who was politically unaligned, essentially an outsider in his party and in Washington. But Carter's inability to read or manipulate the political scene was not the only problem to beleaguer his presidency. Events such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the capture of American hostages in Iran also worked against Carter, creating situations in which no amount of political acumen could have salvaged his presidency.

Hargrove places Carter in historical perspective. Examining his frequently overlooked successes, as well as his failures, Hargrove analyzes both the content and the methods of Carter's policy leadership. His style of leadership is studied in the light of his beliefs and values, and of his problem-solving skills and experience.

This profile draws heavily upon interviews with members of Carter's White House staff. In a consideration for Carter's domestic, economic, and foreign policies, Hargrove shows the congruence of purpose, politics, and process as a president shapes decision making. Because Carter was skilled at solving specific problems, he achieved notable successes -- the Panama Canal Treaty, the Camp David Accord, and the SALT II talks -- when he could keep matters in his own hands. Yet, despite such policy successes, his inability to build strong coalitions and delegate authority, exacerbated by uncontrollable world events, doomed Carter to political defeat.

Throughout Jimmy Carter as President, Hargrove emphasizes that in our assessment of presidents, we should evaluate skill within the historical context and thereby better understanding the ingredients of presidential success. Hargrove's effective and extensive use of interviews proves the advantages of integrating oral history into scholarly research and writing.

Few issues have clung to the presidency in recent years as tenaciously as that of moral leadership. This timely book, based on a lifetime of personal observation by an award-winning author, examines the politics of ideals to propose that, just as moral purpose without political craft is weak, political acumen without moral appeal is futile.

Looking back to the timeless political theories of Aristotle and Machiavelli, Erwin C. Hargrove asks how presidents can most effectively combine political arts and skills with intellectual and moral leadership. He draws on his own scholarly research and synthesizes critical thinking about leadership-especially the point-counterpoint perspectives of Richard Neustadt and James MacGregor Burns. With insight and intelligence, he shows how effective leadership demands a judicious balance of commitment to the public good and an ability to discern the possibilities for political action at any moment.

Hargrove argues that political leadership must contain a moral element if it is to be fully effective, and that a successful president must provide leadership in accord with the ideals embedded in American culture. To demonstrate this theory, he suggests a model with which to analyze, compare, and evaluate political leaders, and then assesses the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan according to the model's normative implications. By examining the three presidents in terms of skill, character, cultural leadership, and other qualities, Hargrove extends his analysis beyond individual presidents to generate keen insights about presidential leadership in general.

This thoughtful book clearly demonstrates that craft dissolves into cleverness without a clear sense of moral purpose, and that truth-telling, empowerment, and altruism in politics are not only desirable but achievable. "The President as Leader" is the capstone of a distinguished career, synthesizing years of observation and research about issues that occupy the thoughts of many Americans. In taking Lincoln's evocation of the better angels of our nature as a source of inspiration for his own reflections, Hargrove reminds us that we, as leaders, have the means before us to become better versions of ourselves.

If you think your job is hopelessly difficult, you may be right. Particularly if your job is public administration.

Those who study or practice public management know full well the difficulties faced by administrators of complex bureaucratic systems. What they don't know is why some jobs in the public sector are harder than others and how good managers cope with those jobs.

Drawing on leadership theory and social psychology, Erwin Hargrove and John Glidewell provide the first systematic analysis of the factors that determine the inherent difficulty of public management jobs and of the coping strategies employed by successful managers. To test their argument, Hargrove and Glidewell focus on those jobs fraught with extreme difficulties--"impossible" jobs.

What differentiates impossible from possible jobs are (1) the publicly perceived legitimacy of the commissioner's clientele; (2) the intensity of the conflict among the agency's constituencies; (3) the public's confidence in the authority of the commissioner's profession; and (4) the strength of the agency's "myth," or long-term, idealistic goal.

Hargrove and Glidewell flesh out their analysis with six case studies that focus on the roles played by leaders of specific agencies. Each essay summarizes the institutional strengths and weaknesses, specifies what makes the job impossible, and then compares the skills and strategies that incumbents have employed in coping with such jobs. Readers will come away with a thorough understanding of the conflicting social, psychological, and political forces that act on commissioners in impossible jobs.

Jameson W. Doig and Erwin C. Hargrove outline a perspective on leadership in government that emphasizes entrepreneurship. They show how government executives' ability to set goals, generate support inside and outside the bureaucracy, and implement innovative ideas-- even at risk to their own careers-- can have a significant impact on their organizations and on society.

In this abridged edition, biographical studies of David Lilienthal, Hyman Rickover, James Webb, Nancy Hanks, Robert McNamara, Wilbur Cohen, Robert Ball, and Austin Tobin illustrate a variety of skills and strategies used by effective executives. Doig and Hargrove describe their styles as ranging from "rhetorical leaders" to "entrepreneurial administrators." Yet these diverse leaders share some important traits, including a capacity to see historical opportunity, the ability to mobilize constituencies, and a desire to "make a difference."

What is political leadership and does it operate differently in different political contexts? In addition to context, personal political skill plays a large role in the area of leadership, often yielding significant results. Whether a leader is active or passive, creating dynamic relations of talent and institutional powers or choosing to leave situations as they are, skill is frequently the key factor in policy achievement. In this book, editors Hargrove and Owens gather seven very different studies of skill in context. From the role of the European Commission president to the well established function of the president of the United States, each essay analyzes and interprets the effects of institutional powers and the environments in which leaders operate on their effectiveness and degree of personal talent each brings to the table.

What is political leadership and does it operate differently in different political contexts? In addition to context, personal political skill plays a large role in the area of leadership, often yielding significant results. Whether a leader is active or passive, creating dynamic relations of talent and institutional powers or choosing to leave situations as they are, skill is frequently the key factor in policy achievement. In this book, editors Hargrove and Owens gather seven very different studies of skill in context. From the role of the European Commission president to the well established function of the president of the United States, each essay analyzes and interprets the effects of institutional powers and the environments in which leaders operate on their effectiveness and degree of personal talent each brings to the table.

This volume offers a comparative analysis of the challenges facing center-left parties in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union, Poland, and Russia. Among the questions addressed are:

-If the traditional social bases of left parties are now too limited for winning in majoritarian politics, what kind of coalitions and ideas, which reach beyond those bases and yet retain them, may be effective?

- If the answer to the first question is that such umbrella coalitions are too torn to be workable, what is the alternative? What is gained and lost in moves toward the center or further to the left?

- Is coalition politics sufficient for governance in terms of both policy and the long-term political health of a party, or must there be a central, guiding set of ideas around which coalitions are formed?

- What are the inherent weaknesses of market-oriented parties against which democratic center-left parties might appeal and win?

- To what extent do national histories and political cultures both provide resources for, and set constraints and limits on, what parties may creatively do with political appeals and policies?

The center of political gravity differs in these countries, with the United States and United Kingdom to the right and France and Germany to the left. Neither Poland nor Russia has been able to develop a party of this kind with any political strength. These essays explore how center-left parties, positioned as they are in the electoral spectrum, cope with the challenge of establishing an ideology to distinguish themselves from center-right parties and, while remaining both moderate and progressive, or even radical, try also to capture the center of politics.

Contributors are David S. Bell, Alonzo L. Hamby, Uwe Jun, Robert Ladrech, Thomas F. Remington, Hubert Tworzecki, and Mark Wickham-Jones.

"This book is a must for anyone interested in public policy studies, the changing roles of government in modern America, and twentieth-century southern history. It is important as a study of government at its best and worst."--Bruce D. Wheeler, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
"This is an excellent study of the agency's leadership and major policy developments, and it is sure to rank as the best introduction for anyone interested in the Tennessee Valley Authority."--American Historical Review
In Prisoners of Myth, Erwin Hargrove analyzes the organizational culture of the Tennessee Valley Authority by looking at the actions of its leaders over six decades. His probing narrative ranges from the heroic years of the New Deal and World War II through the postwar period of consolidation and growth to the time of the troubles from 1970 onward, when the TVA ran afoul of environmental legislation, built a massive nuclear power plant it could not control, and sought new missions for which there were no constituencies.
Hargrove shows how the TVA's founding myth of multipurpose regional development was inappropriately pursued in the 1970s and 1980s by leaders who became "prisoners of myth" in their efforts to keep the agency heroic. Based on rich interview materials and historical documents from TVA archives, this study provides penetrating insights into the ways in which bureacratic institutions perform in the face of historical change. In a preface written especially for this new paperback edition, Hargrove discusses the responses the book received upon its initial publication in 1994 and the theory of organizational leadership that emerged from his research into the TVA.
The Author: Erwin C. Hargrove is professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and the author, most recently, of The President as Leader: Appealing to the Better Angels of Our Nature.

Few issues have clung to the presidency in recent years as tenaciously as that of moral leadership. This timely book, based on a lifetime of personal observation by an award-winning author, examines the politics of ideals to propose that, just as moral purpose without political craft is weak, political acumen without moral appeal is futile.

Looking back to the timeless political theories of Aristotle and Machiavelli, Erwin C. Hargrove asks how presidents can most effectively combine political arts and skills with intellectual and moral leadership. He draws on his own scholarly research and synthesizes critical thinking about leadership-especially the point-counterpoint perspectives of Richard Neustadt and James MacGregor Burns. With insight and intelligence, he shows how effective leadership demands a judicious balance of commitment to the public good and an ability to discern the possibilities for political action at any moment.

Hargrove argues that political leadership must contain a moral element if it is to be fully effective, and that a successful president must provide leadership in accord with the ideals embedded in American culture. To demonstrate this theory, he suggests a model with which to analyze, compare, and evaluate political leaders, and then assesses the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan according to the model's normative implications. By examining the three presidents in terms of skill, character, cultural leadership, and other qualities, Hargrove extends his analysis beyond individual presidents to generate keen insights about presidential leadership in general.

This thoughtful book clearly demonstrates that craft dissolves into cleverness without a clear sense of moral purpose, and that truth-telling, empowerment, and altruism in politics are not only desirable but achievable. "The President as Leader" is the capstone of a distinguished career, synthesizing years of observation and research about issues that occupy the thoughts of many Americans. In taking Lincoln's evocation of the better angels of our nature as a source of inspiration for his own reflections, Hargrove reminds us that we, as leaders, have the means before us to become better versions of ourselves.