Since America’s rebirth and gaining of independence, forty-six presidents have existed. All these presidents have offered their ideas, commitments, and interests to craft a better America and bring out a fundamental change in the nation’s political, social, and economic regime. In political science class, we learn about the 3 I’s-ideas, interests, and institutions- which are specific complexes articulating leadership eras within the history of a nation. These eras are referred to as political regimes, commonly described as the life cycle of politics experienced by the nation at a certain period. In his book, The Politics of Presidents Make, Stephen Skowronek argues that political regimes position a president in different political times. By understanding how Skowronek breaks down different political regimes in their political times and the four of Skowronek’s presidential regimes, President Joe Biden can accurately be classified under Skowronek’s theory. I believe that president Biden is a pre-emptive leader, utilizing President Donald Trump’s disjunctive politics, breaking away from unproductive political regimes like Reagan’s, and bringing positive change in the united states during a crisis. Skowronek’s book is very important to place President Biden in his right regime.
James Scott, a political scientist, observed the American Presidency is out of fear or promise (James). According to him, the promise is essential in providing actions that meet the problems Americans are facing, while fear is about the power of the President becoming too much, making the leader an autocrat (Howell & Moe, 2020). In the case of Obama, Trump, and Biden as Presidents of America, all these presidents used fear and promise. Obama and Biden provided actions that met the promise they made to the American citizens, while Trump’s Presidency was made out of fear of power. According to James, as long as the President met his promise and ensured that the nation’s needs were met, Democracy would always prevail. James deemed Trump’s failure to meet the citizens’ needs a threat to democracy, a product of an ineffective government. On the other hand, Biden has tried to make sure that his promise to the citizens is met. During his presidency, he focused on ensuring that he employed strategies that would help stabilize the economy of America and promote peace and social justice in the nation.
Skowronek’s theory
Over the years, political scholars have debated the boundaries of presidential authority and responsibility. Skowronek, through his book The Politics of Presidents Make, explains how American Presidents have been forceful agents of change, describing the Executive part of the government as an instrument used by politicians and presidents as an instrument of political disruptions and organization. In his book, Skowronek has expressed the authority and power of the President in the united states while casting the President’s office in an American context that prizes originality and action through the president’s ideas, interests, and political views. This is the theory of presidential leadership, as Skowronek describes it. In his book, Skowronek entails that presidents are indicators of institutional change over time.
The political disruption in the history of American presidents motivated by different commitments to organizational goals and objectives frames the cycle of formation, shattering, and crumbling political regimes (James). Embedded within these recurrent patterns in different political regimes at different times in the presidency office, Skowronek refers to the process as a battering ram that shatters the preexisting arrangements and commitments of previous regime presidents while also forming new arrangements and warrants for power. “Time and time again, the lesson is the same: the power to recreate hinges on the authority repudiating it (Skowronek, 1993).” According to Skowronek, American Presidents can recreate political possibilities, define organizational commitments, and establish courses of action.
Presidential Politics Categorization
The American presidency, over generations, has proven itself to be a negation instrument aimed at extricating established elites, destroying the arrangements made by previous presidents that support these elites, and clearing a way for new establishments that the current President sees fit. This leads to a chaotic field of abolished political arrangements and new reconstructed political commitments. Skowronek compares and contrasts different presidents from the history of America by distinguishing their work in the concept of political time regime (Skowronek, 1993, p. 30). Rather than attributing each President based on their work and the leadership approach they used, Skowronek uses each President’s time and location within that political time to establish the work and political identities as the President of the United States of America. Skowronek does this more precisely by separating the presidents into linear groups with labeled regimes.
According to Skowronek, a president’s political time can be determined by his regime’s status as resilient or vulnerable during its period defining the President as affiliated to the regime’s party or opposed. Based on these conditions, Skowronek arranges the presidential politics regime as reconstructive, disjunction, preemptive, or articulation. Articulation and disjunction are for party affiliates, whereas pre-emption and reconstructive are for presidents of regime party opponents. Categorizing President Joe Biden as a pre-emptive opponent of the Reagan Regime is quite a journey in history. Let us look at Skowronek’s presidential political regimes:
Reconstructive Presidents Regime
Skowronek described this regime as a type of politics that emerges in governmental disrepute or weak political resistance whereby previous political arrangements are dismantled, giving way for new political arrangements and bases of action. These presidents seek to reclaim the mythical presidential values cast off in previous political regimes. according to Skowronek, these politics merge “order-shattering” and “order-affirming” President’s obligations casting aside the prearrangements of the previous presidential regimes and paving the way for new ideas, interests, and political actions rooted in “ancient truths.” According to Skowronek, some of the presidents in this regime include President Abram Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, and Franklin Roosevelt.
Disjunction Presidents Regime
According to Skowronek, the leadership that preceded reconstructive leadership is the regime of disjunction. This type of politics is marked by an expiration of previously established political actions and commitments because they cannot meet the current government’s challenges. Disjunctive presidents undergo “reification of technique” (Skowronek, 1993). According to Skowronek, it becomes a great danger to reaffirm previous commitments in this leadership structure. “… a threat to a nation’s viability, if not survival.” Through this process, past commitments and political actions are reproduced in the form of inauthentic rituals. They serve as the basis for reconstructing new political commitments providing a premise of repudiation. According to Skowronek, presidents in this regime are the weakest. This is because the current President cannot affirm the failing regime commitments, and neither does he repudiate them because the coalition may see it as a sign of weakness and is unable to produce their political commitments. The presidents in this regime include Herbert Hoover, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, and John Quincy Adams.
Politics of articulation regime
This type of regime provides resilience and affirmation of the existing political commitments. Presidents in this regime believe in regimes and commitments pioneered by reconstructive leaders by further elaborating on the commitments on orthodoxy. These presidents are tasked with balancing past and present political commitments and arrangements. According to Skowronek, these presidents are known as “orthodox innovators” because they blaze an already-traveled path. These presidents include; President Teddy Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, James Monroe, George H. W. Bush, and James Polk.
Preemptive leaders’ regime
Skowronek defines this regime as presidents who interfere with resilient political arrangements and commitments, disregarding the main party and disrupting the existing order. Presidents in this regime often lack principles and hence are constantly criticized. They are flexible and make accommodations for change. The presidents in this regime are prone to assassinations, and they include John Tyler, Bill Clinton, Zachary Taylor, and Richard Nixon, among others.
Placing President Joe Biden in the Right Political Regime
Since Ronald Reagan, no president has ever been able to achieve more legislative measures and agendas in their first years of Presidency like President Joe Biden. With a small congressional majority, President Biden was able to deliver enormous Budget reforms and better domestic policies and acts (Robin, 2021). Even in the face of opposition, Joe Biden has been able to accommodate the demands of these oppositions while also ensuring the nation’s interests are met. Also, even with these achievements, President Biden’s presidency has had enormous spending that will not be fixed in the near future. Mostly this is a result of the Covid-19 pandemic that drove the nation’s economy to its verge. Let us look at historical presidential regimes to understand the right political regime into which President Joe Biden fits.
For every regime Skowronek creates, the President’s actions are based on the era and time; that era defines their ideas, institutions, actions, and interests. Later these presidents are replaced by other regimes of different eras with different political views, actions, and different political parties. This process is continual and recurrent. According to Skowronek, each of the past presidents of the United States fit into four archetype regimes. He uses this to compare and contrast different presidents from different eras. Using Skowronek’s methodology, with Donald Trump and Joe Biden as the current United States President, the US nation was placed in a Republican-based Reagan Regime during Trump’s time. In contrast, with President Joe Biden, we are currently placed in a Democratic-based Clinton third-way regime. Therefore, due to Joe Biden’s position as an elected president of the Democratic party and political time, political regime, his resilient political ideas, interests, commitments, and political views, I believe that the current US President is best understood as a preemptive president.
Before examining the presidency and political regime of the current US president Joe Biden, we must explore the past United States president Donald Trump. President Trump was Biden’s predecessor and a republican who believed in disillusioned ideas with the Republican party; he had misaligned political interests and progressive ideas, ad lastly, he lacked stable political prowess. Therefore, we can categorize his presidency as disjunctive and full of chaos. Before President Trump’s time, the past presidents Skownorek categorized in the four political regimes were identified as from the same party and hand-picked to continue with the hierarchy of leading the States (Skowronek, 1993, p. 8). These presidents were destined to continue with the work left by the preceding regime presidents, which Skowronek refers to as ‘reconstructive presidents.’ Before President Trump, his preceding presidents possessed characteristics and qualities he did not have. Below are some of these qualities, as Skowronek describes;
Reconstructive Leadership through Carter’s Age
Take, for instance, President Carter, whose Presidency marked the end of Roosevelt’s political regime. According to Skowronek, Carter was stuck with an orthodoxy that did not hold the nation’s interest and provided solutions that met the nation’s problems (Skowronek, 1993 Pp433). When Carter became the president of the United States, he had several political ideas and solutions to fix the nation. The problem is that these solutions were almost similar to Reagan’s. These ideas included welfare reforms, deregulation of businesses, increasing military funds, reduction of taxes, and spending cuts. These reforms would help develop the nation while also promoting its safety of the nation. However, carter was faced with a problem of political heresy emphasized by opposition leader Ted Kennedy. Due to this, Carter had to disregard his ideas and revert to Kennedy’s orthodox liberal agenda, which was not effective in solving the problems America faced at the time. as a result, disjunction presidents failed to believe in themselves, and therefore it became difficult for them to solve issues of their time leaving a gap for the next regime president to come and fix the problems.
Jeffersonian Reconstruction: Jackson and Partisan
Skowronek begins by exploring the politics of Thomas Jefferson to trace the cycle of political organization. Jefferson cleared room for a new republican order defined by the separation of power and country-party conscience and revitalized the domestic market, enabling commerce and domestic production of products. It is James Monroe who upheld this order to change the nation’s economic, social, and political regimes. Monroe had a bit of a challenge with repeated violations of preexisting power arrangements and fights over regional territories. He was also faced with a challenge to reconcile with the secretariat divide. After John Quincy Adams became the President in 1825, Thomas Jefferson’s consensus and arrangements were deeply frayed. Adams brought the idea of “talent and virtue alone” in the era of partisan politics. Adam came up with a changed strategy to change the economic condition of the nation, which was so much different from Jefferson’s. Adams used federal force in addition to his political ambitions to promote the improvement of the State’s economy. This promoted a gap that needed to be closed by a new figure who would recast Jefferson’s expired political commitments and renew them to solve the nation’s current problems at the time.
Same way Jefferson was stopped by the institutional thickening, according to Skowronek, Biden too is stopped from reconstruction by this context. Since the beginning of America as a free country, the dollar has always ruled the world economy as the currency of the world, a government bureaucracy and imperial military, media technologies, and activists (Robin, 2021). These institutions offer the modern resources that Jefferson, as a president, did not have. They also empower Biden’s opposition making it easy to resist reconstruction initiatives. It is challenging for President Biden to outdo social media because Trump tried it, and he was banned from Twitter. Although Biden could employ reconstructive policies, this makes it difficult for him to implement the needed strategies to change the nation.
Andrew Jackson was the new figure expected to usher in the new political order. Jackson made up a new partisan era that was constituted by relieving the executive branch from the legislature, organizing a two-party system, and using patronizing the public to support him. The only issue with Jackson’s era was fighting against the national bank by refusing to pass the bill to reestablish the bank, which made Jeffersonian obsequiousness to legislative supremacy a sham. Enabling the legislature more would have robbed the executive of its power, and the legislature would have had control over the executive, delegating the branch as they saw fit (Rakove, 1996). Jackson believed that this was the only way in which he could restore and stabilize the nation and no other way around it.
After Andrew Jackson, James Polk followed in this era but with mature initiatives to the partisan regime and more equipped political measures. Polk affirmed Jackson’s political views and interests while asserting control over the oval office. His attempt to bridge sectarian division in his era led to more rebuke and ridicule among the congress. Issues of slavery complicated most of his initiatives, like land reforms, Manifest Destiny, and Internal Improvements. By the end of Polk’s era and the beginning of Franklin Pierces,’, sectarian conflicts had advanced, becoming too much to bear. In 1850, a compromise was made that gutted the Jacksonian nationalism and issues of slavery on whether new states should be free or slaves were torn. All the way through to Pierce, Polk’s politics were characterized by competing for political views and interests with a section of an inevitable agitation of one section of the government.
Republican Leadership: Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln
Both these presidencies occurred in an era of civil war. Abraham Lincoln rose to power in an unusual environment for any president. Lincoln’s era was more versed by the Republican party. As the South seceded, Lincoln took the opportunity to match the north towards a consensus for eradicating the interests of the slaves and also saving the union. Lincoln used his power as the President and reached back to the distant myths of the Republican party to declare Independence and a Revolution that would warrant a realistic action for him as the President. Besides Lincoln rallying the support of the Republican party, he also managed to form a relationship between the government and the community that would promote economic activities such as agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce, among others.
On the other hand, President Theodore Roosevelt, by the 20th Century, had defined the conservative radicalism order as one of his political commitments. Roosevelt leveraged his new power as the President to create a direct relationship between the President of the United States and the public creating more room for the executive to promote flexibility and promulgation of policies. To make sure that his reign was secured and his commitments were continued, Roosevelt handed over the presidency to William Taft in 1908.
After William Taft took over Roosevelt, he proved to be a mediocre successor. He went against Roosevelt’s expectations and contradicted his preceding President’s course of action; Roosevelt hurled a third-party movement under the pretext of a reconstructive rebel. While Roosevelt’s plan failed, he did not succeed in becoming an effective reconstructive leader. His political views and interests were too weak to be part of a traditional Republican orthodoxy then he drew divisions between the present and past. By the end of his era, Roosevelt did not have something to repudiate.
Rise of the Modern Presidency
This era constituted Franklin Roosevelt rising to prominence with opposite interests and political views opposite from Herbert Hoover, who steered the cooperative management program that promoted a relationship between the public and private sectors. After the breakdown of this program, President Hoover called for more courses of action by the government, breaking down the commitment to more volunteering, limited government, and local sovereignty. Hoover’s administration anticipated Roosevelt’s New Deal, whereby Roosevelt launched a new arrangement for reframing governmental primacies to underscore a new range of governmental interests.
Roosevelt faced many challenges with the reconstructive action brought upon him due to power separation. Roosevelt’s political views and national priorities robbed him of support for Elites, unions, and the Supreme Court. The court itself rejected his plan to recover the nation. After a while, Roosevelt regained control after sponsoring new Acts with more determined government objectives. Roosevelt’s political regime was more defined by the political restraints he faced than by the policies and achievements he made as a president.
Lyndon Johnson challenged the distinction between being a reconstructive president and being an orthodox innovator. Johnson sought to complete the New Deal while promoting his expansive political interests and agendas. He maintained the preexisting political arrangements in his military support of South Vietnam and through other internal initiatives such as civil rights policies and health care. Like any other President, Johnson’s leadership was faced with some opposition who criticized his version of received faith. However, as a result of the policies he implemented on both health care and civil rights, he was able to earn himself some democrats. Johnson’s political ideas and interests, especially with the support of Vietnam, gave rise to a threat against his legacy, led by Bobby- John Kennedy’s brother, who claimed he was the rightful heir to the presidency.
Although this did not lead to the fall of this regime, its demise came to pass during the era of Jimmy Carter, who was ambitious about concealing contemporary divisions over choosing to appease the businessmen and unions of the time. Carter was deemed incompetent and a prop of the old regime that did not promote the economic prevailing of the nation. Therefore, Carter’s presidency became a disjunctive leadership due to a lack of appropriate political views and actions that would help solve the problems in the nation. According to Skowronek, Carter came to office with ideas that were similar to Reagan’s; however, due to political heresy and commitment to the orthodox liberal coalition, which Ted Kennedy emphasized, he was unable to implement his own views; instead, he was forced to revert to the orthodox liberal agendas which were incompetent and ineffective in meeting the current problems of the nation in this regime.
The Reagan Regime and the Clinton’s Third-way
Skowronek’s final regime is traced back to the time of Reagan’s leadership, Bush’s son’s elaborations, and the pre-emptive political regime of Bill Clinton. Regan had different political views. However, his presidency was challenged by the rising modern presidency restraints. While Reagan proposed new ideas to help solve the current problems in the nation, such as budget reformation, some people were unwilling to welcome the change. Reagan’s political plan and ideas were eventually deemed as self-delusions and speculation that could never be attained in the nation. In his time, the economy failed, the federal debts were massive, and generally, the economy was in crisis. Reagan sought to refute these problems and proposed ideas that could have worked, but eventually, he fell victim to restraints and opposition imposed on his presidency. Reagan, in his leadership, established that “in the present crisis, the government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” According to Skowronek, by this, Reagan meant that the small government would successfully abolish the growth of Elites and Unions that took advantage of the common citizen. Through this, Reagan established that the small government would be directed into a presidential battering ram against elites, principal clients, and institutions of the liberal regime.
George H. W. Bush, on the other hand, had an obligation to reconcile the differences Reagan left. As the times called for extreme measures to save the economy, Bush refuted Reagan’s political commitments resulting in his isolation. George followed through a disjunctive politics that further illuminates President Joe Biden’s political position. Bush came into office in a very controversial way, and how he became the President highly influenced his presidency. George became the President in 2000 after a long debate on who won the presidential debates for the State of Florida, a controversy decided by the Supreme court, with Biden emerging as the winner with a 5-4 decision. Eager to prove his promise to the people, Bush, in the first months of his presidency, sought to make true his promise to the people. This involved the “Bush tax cuts” regime, and policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act of the education system were among the first two policies Bush implemented. These policies, among other future policies Bush incorporated, were received well by the public. Similarly, President Joe Biden got into office almost the same way President George Bush got in.
After his election in 2021, Joe Biden was faced with allegations that the elections were not fair and President Trump had won the elections. At first, Trump hesitated to leave the presidency, leading to the supreme court deciding who won the election. After entering the Presidency, Joe Biden was faced with the challenge of seeking to prove to the Americans that he could be a good president just as President Obama was. He sought to prove his promise to the people the same way President George Bush did. Like George Bush, President Biden was obligated to reconcile the nation from the conflicts left by President Trump and continue with the work Obama left as he left the presidency. With this pressure Biden plus the pressure brought about by the Covid-19 global pandemic that affected the economy of the world and the nation too, Joe Biden’s presidency is often as stagnant, and people that he is not doing the work he is supposed to do in the office which is improving the economy of America and promoting the security of the nation.
Skowronek’s last regime ended with the era of Bill Clinton, who had to deal with a resilient presidency that was before him. Reagan’s political views were still valid and useful in the current situation, and Bush’s elaboration is still worth pursuing. Clinton employed a pre-emptive leadership, formulating third-way politics that incorporated the establishment of the previous two presidents in this regime. Clinton supported budget reforms, trade policies, welfare reforms, and crime bills. Clinton demolished the era of big government and established mongrel politics which, according to Skowronek, involves looking into the challenges of the previous government and accommodating the preexisting order. Clinton’s part-democratic party was highly criticized, and as a president, his character was questioned, with his political views branded as a liberal conspiracy. Like Clinton, President Biden has felt the same magnitude of pressure in his years of ruling, especially when people expect him to follow Obama’s political perspectives. Biden is expected to drive the economy in a positive direction even when he was handed over the Presidency during a challenging time with the verge of the Covid-19 pandemic. This indicates that the Reagan regime has set President Biden to use Pre-emptive politics to combine the political views of President Obama while tossing aside the conflicts in between and accommodating the preexisting political order.
Often, preemptive presidents are viewed as unprincipled, manipulative, and unscrupulous. Most of the time, they are viewed as presidents that lack original ideas and are unable to solve the nation’s problems, just like President Clinton was singled-out for their character flaws. Even during his presidential campaign in 1992, the issue of drugs prevailed in the nation and surrounded Clinton’s campaign. He then addressed these issues on national television, which led him to win people’s votes hence winning the presidential seat fashionably. Similarly, President Biden’s leadership is often criticized, and people do not believe it to be able to draw them from the current problems facing America. In 1998, Clinton was involved in a sex scandal involving a 22-year-old intern in the White House. The relationship with the intern shadowed his achievements as a president, costing him being impeached in 1999 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. According to Skowronek, Clinton was called out for a flaw of character.
Every President resides in a vulnerable or resilient regime. For President Carter, the New Deal perspective was weak and vulnerable, whereas for Lyndon Johnson, it was resilient and strong. When a president is faced with strong opposition, his authority is less like the case of Lyndon Johnson, who had strong political views, but the liberal orthodox agenda deal he had made with his opposing council drove him towards using strategies that did not solve the challenges faced by the nation at the time. He had to ignore measures and strategies similar to Reagan that could have worked to solve the nation’s economic problems to follow through with the liberal orthodox agendas they set with the opposition. Similarly, just like James Polk and Abraham Lincoln, Polk sought to extend slavery, but Abraham Lincoln sought to end it. The same situation was Biden’s and Trump’s. Trump sought to follow through with agendas that were unjust to the people of color in America, but Biden sought to end the cycle of social injustice.
Conclusion
By fully reviewing Skowronek’s theory of political times and the regimes, we can conclude that President Jo Biden’s Presidency is moving towards pre-emptive presidential politics. Skowronek’s work stresses the importance of past presidencies in determining any president’s presidential position in the political time and regime. Through the examination of the four regimes from the Jeffersonian reconstruction, republican leadership, modern presidency, and the Reagan Regimes, we are able to define President Joe Biden as a pre-emptive president using the studies of George Bush and Bill Clinton as disjunctive and preemptive presidents respectively together with other minor examples of other presidents who relate to the study of Biden as a President, a president during the World pandemic. Bill Clinton’s Presidency is almost similar to Joe Biden, and they are almost faced similar challenges during their presidential eras.
References
Howell, W. & Moe, T. (2020). How a stronger presidency could lead to more effective government. The Washington Post.
James, S. Chapter 1 of the Executive Branch: The Evolution of the Presidency: Between The Promise and The Fear.
Rakove, J. N. (1996). Original earning: Politics and idea in the making of the constitution.
Robin, C. Why The Biden Presidency Feels Like Such a Disappointment. Opinion Guest Essay. New York Times.
Skowronek, S. (1993). The Politics Presidents Make Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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