For Immediate Release                                                           
December 15, 2005

Contact: Bahram Rajaee
(202) 483-2512

ASSESSING THE LEADERSHIP OF GEORGE W. BUSH: THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF "LEADING BY DEFINITION."

Washington, DC--President George W. Bush leads by proactively defining issues, opponents, and the political times in which we live.  While such "leadership by definition" echoes a long line of presidential behavior, the 43^rd president's unique formulation of it could signal a notable shift in American party politics.  So finds a recent political science research article that assesses the main characteristics, historical place, and political implications of the Bush leadership posture.

The research, entitled "Leadership by Definition: First Term Reflections on George W. Bush's Political Stance," was conducted by political scientist Stephen Skowronek (Yale University) and appears in the December issue of Perspectives on Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association (APSA).  It is available online at /imgtest/PerspectivesDec05Skowronek.pdf.

Leadership posture matters because it is "the principal impression, often the only impression, Americans get of their president," states Skowronek.  President Bush's leadership posture has arguably set a new standard in immunizing the presidency from the risks of today's hyper-politicized, media-exposed environment.  His success is traced by the author to several factors: his personal political experiences, the imperative of defining political issues and opponents during the revitalization of the conservative movement, and the GOP's control of American national government. 

President Bush has effectively used his ties to the GOP orthodoxy to allow him to pursue new initiatives.  Skowronek explains that in this sense he is one of a long line of "orthodox innovators" in American presidential history.  Like other presidents who led by tying themselves to their political base while seeking to go beyond orthodoxy--including James Polk, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson--President Bush faces the challenge of redeeming "old promises while responding to the demand for something new."  The author notes, however, that "of all the leadership projects that recur in presidential history, [this] is...the one that finds the leader most insistent on setting terms up front and gaining agreement on definitions."  The effect has been to magnify the consequences of President Bush's leadership posture.

Skowronek also documents differences between President Bush and these similar presidents.  In a break with historical patterns, President Bush was successfully reelected in 2004. The author also finds that "never has a leadership posture so at odds with the contingencies thrust upon it been employed so aggressively...."  After the 2000 election, President Bush was dealt a weak hand that exposed the strengths of his leadership.  He then faced an event in 9/11 that strengthened his hand but exposed weaknesses.  In both cases, Skrowronek asserts that President Bush's resolve to define events before they defined him charted his responses.  Ultimately, this led to his most forceful assertion of leadership by definition: the equation of the war on terror with the invasion of Iraq.

These findings raise important questions about contemporary American politics, such as the unusual nature of the GOP's party unity in recent years.  Could the subordination of party ideology and programs to the president's chosen course signal an erosion of the ability of parties to hold their leaders to account?  "If it were borne out, the historic constraints imposed on presidential leadership...would be substantially dissipated," Skowronek concludes, "and in thinking about what this still-unfolding episode might have to tell us about the emergent state of the American polity overall, this is surely the most original and weighty prospect."

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The American Political Science Association (est. 1903) is the leading professional organization for the study of political science and has 15,000 members in 80 countries. For more information about political science research visit the APSA's media website, www.politicalsciencenews.org.