Partisanship and party leadership in the contemporary American presidency

One of the many roles which have traditionally received obligatory attention in scholarly descriptions of the American Presidency is that of the President as leader of his political party. Many recent studies are in essential agreement that less attention is being paid to party matters by contemporary Presidents, but little systematic research has been reported which describes how or why incumbents are avoiding the duties of party leadership.

The purposes of this thesis were: (1) to provide an historical overview of the ways in which past Presidents have exercised party leadership and (2) to describe in detail the party-related activities of the five most recent Presidents, John Kennedy through Jimmy Carter. A fundamental distinction was made between the concepts of "partisanship" (an attitudinal predisposition toward party loyalty) and "party leadership" (active presidential participation in the organization and policies of the national party).

Party leadership of recent Presidents was assessed on the basis of three indicators: (1) the amount and nature of contact between the incumbent and the leadership of the national party, (2) the extent of the President's personal involvement in mid-term congressional campaigns, and (3) the percentage of major presidential appointees from. the incumbent's own party. A general working hypothesis was advanced suggesting that strong partisanship in Presidents will tend to be associated with strong party leadership, while weak tendencies toward party loyalty will be accompanied by a correspondingly weak performance of the party leader role.

The data on which the study was based were gathered from presidential memoirs and public papers, memoirs of close advisors, presidential biographies, and works on the Presidency by scholars and journalists. From these data, a nominal classification was made of each President as either a "strong" or 'weak" actor on the dimensions of partisanship and party leadership. A summary typology was developed listing the classifications of the five Presidents whose activities were studied.

The major findings of the research were: (1) among the five contemporary Presidents examined, the activities attending partisanship and party leadership have been of relatively minor significance in the context of the total Presidency, and (2) the evidence presented supports the general hypothesis that strong partisanship is related to strong party leadership and weak partisan tendencies with weak party leadership.