LECTURE 10

                          THE PRESIDENCY

 

Political Science 200

David Tabb

 

I. Traditional view is that there are two presidencies--domestic and foreign policy presidency. President finds it easier to control foreign policy than domestic policy because there are fewer stable interest groups competing between each other and with him for defining foreign policy

 

II. Some would say Congress has driven the last five presidents from office through RIP- revelation, investiga­tion and prosecution. Divided government has meant that the president controls the Courts and the exec. branch and Congress represents those groups unable to get on the Executive's agenda.

  III. Decision-making of the President--The Cuban Missile Crisis

     Three ways of assessing the Cuban Missile Crisis decision movie, "13 Days"

     a. Rational actor model in which acts of government are view as purposive--goals, choices, acts-- in which Kennedy's decision was conceived as an act from the perspective Kennedy vs. Khrushchev. The rational actor paradigm asserts the proposition that political actor will resort to a minimax strategy.  Antagonists--in this case the U.S. will seek to maximize minimum gains while minimizing maximum losses. So, the blockade rather than the surgical strike was a logical outcome of the conservative strategy that Kennedy "naturally" chose

     b. The organizational process model assumes that presidential decisions are not best understood as rational outcomes; but rather a product of a constellation of loosely allied organizations on top of which govt. leaders sit. The goals of the organizations (e.g. Defense dept, State Dept, etc.) are not national security or national interest but organizational survival --money, power, desire to avoid conflict--. Orgs. operate according to standard operating procedures (Sop's) ; therefore the Cuban missile decision is best understood from the perspective of how each organization reacted to the crises in terms of its own functions. Ex.--Sec. of Defenses query of whether anyone speaks Russian on the boat.

    c. The final model is the bureaucratic politics model in which presidential decision-making is seen as an outcome of bargaining games between players with powerful stakes involved.