"Greatness" Revisited
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"Greatness" Revisited: Evaluating the Performance of Early American Presidents in Terms of Cultural Dilemmas Author(s): Richard Ellis and Aaron Wildavsky Source: Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1, Presidential Greatness in Peace and in War (Winter, 1991), pp. 15-34 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27550661 . Accessed: 13/07/2011 12:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. 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Blackwell Publishing and Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Presidential Studies Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org "Greatness" Revisited: Evaluating The Performance of Early American Presidents in Terms of Cultural Dilemmas RICHARD ELLIS AARON WILDAVSKY Political ScienceDepartment and Survey Research Center University of California, Berkeley Abstract to a we A president'sability resolvecultural dilemmas provides standardby which can success "Great" we are those who judge presidential and failure. presidents, suggest, provide we solutions to culturaldilemmas. Using this criterion, find that of thefirst sixteenpresidents (from thefounding of therepublic through the Civil War), GeorgeWashington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew and Abraham Lincoln as We Jackson, qualify great presidents. also conclude that Adams and considered "near are John James Polk, commonly great" presidents, greatly overrated. What is themark of a "great" president?Will Ronald Reagan be inducted into select not a a this class? If Great then how about Near Great president? Or will as or worse a he be remembered merely Average, still, Failure? Does he deserve a ranking higher or lower than Jimmy Carter? Lyndon Johnson? Dwight Eisenhower? Truman? Harry How does his performance compare with that of James Madison, or soon John Tyler Andrew Jackson? Journalists and academics will earnestly address themselves to our measures the question of how 39th president up against his illus trious and less than illustrious predecessors. a of has the Polling panel "experts" become accepted way of rendering history's of ear judgement presidential performance. The presidential greatness game began in nest in when Arthur 1948, Schlesinger asked fifty-five prominent historians to grade our A Near past presidents: signified Great; B, Great; C, Average; D, Below Average; and Failure. there to in E, Believing be wisdom numbers, subsequent surveys have expanded the panel of "experts" from 571 in 1970 to 953 in 1983.1 The of practice evaluating presidential performance by polling historians is a cu one. are rious Characteristically surveys conducted to obtain information about the either in the form of or respondent, preferences?which candidate party do you prefer? or beliefs about the are empirical world?how many members in the House of Represen tatives. We do not as a rule conduct to a surveys gauge the validity of claim. Why then we so to do do with respect presidential performance? The answer is that we lack criteria for we agreed upon making these judgements. If had accepted criteria, 15 STUDIES 16 I PRESIDENTIAL QUARTERLY to we surveys would be superfluous (and subject corroboration); would need only to check presidential performance against the established yardsticks. ? While these surveys have yielded interesting information about the respondents Murray and Blessing's poll, for instance, finds that American historians specializing esteem in women's history hold George Washington in much lower than the sample as a are not a to whole ?they good tool evaluate presidential performance. There is no reason to mean more think the judgement of 1000 historians valid than the esti mate a so as our com of single scholar specializing in past presidents. In far aim is to pare the performances of presidents, rather than gather information about the pollees, to energies should be directed devising appropriate criteria for evaluating performance. The original Schlesinger survey completely sidestepped the issue of criteria to be used in appraising presidential performance. The only instructions in the first poll were test in case is in that "the each performance office, omitting anything done before or one was to was after."2 How gauge the performance in office left unspecified. In the absence of such criteria, the finding that president X ranked higher than president was Y difficult to interpret. to In Presidential Greatness, Stephen Bailey attempted remedy this deficiency by identifying criteria through which presidents could be measured. He came up with forty-three yardsticks for measuring presidential greatness: achievement, administra tive capacity, appointees, blunders, eloquence, industriousness, scandals, sensitivity, a as and many more.3 If the Schlesinger survey suffered from lack of guidelines to tests the unit of comparability, the surfeit of devised by Bailey left the reader with a commendably broader view of the many facets of the presidency but equally helpless. we were no By including everything and excluding nothing better than before at evalu ating presidential performance. measures as Often the standard of presidential greatness employs such amount or of legislation passed, activity in office, number of objectives pursued. But these create a criteria pronounced bias towards activist presidents. That such criteria sneak in ideological judgements about the ends of government is indicated by Schlesinger's or conclusion that the 1962 survey showed that average mediocre presidents "believed in to negative government, in self-subordination the legislative power."4 Why should a contemporary activist view?the presidency is best that adds functions to govern ment a and/or the presidency?be standard for scholars? aware as con Though acutely of the limitations of presidential ratings presently we not a ducted, do accept the claim that "comparing eminent figures is only game," or a that "each [president] operated within unique political environment."5 By taking at aim the easy target of presidential ratings, attention is deflected away from what we a more to contend is significant defect ?the tendency wrap each president and in a to his times unique cocoon, thereby reducing the study of the presidency political as biography. The result, James MacGregor Burns correctly pointed out two decades ago, is that "We know everything about the Presidents and nothing about the Presi dency."6 It would be both ironic and unfortunate for the most well-known effort to to com compare presidencies discredit the laudable, indeed essential, goal of making parisons among administrations. The presidential greatness game remains popular pre "GREATNESS"REVISITED | 17 it Our cisely because holds up the tantalizing prospect of comparing presidencies. aim is to do just that. Resolving Cultural Dilemmas: A Mark of Greatness All presidents face cultural dilemmas, albeit of different kinds and intensi to we a ties. Their ability resolve these dilemmas, believe, provides criterion for evalu can terms ating their performance. Our hypothesis is that presidencies be evaluated in or overcome. are of dilemmas confronted, evaded, created "Great" presidents those to who provide solutions culturally induced dilemmas. we not mean customs. are coun By political culture do national Nor cultures are as we use same tries. All those residing in America not, the term, adherents of the we a political culture. Rather analyze politics from perspective of cultural dissensus, or com i.e. the conflict between cultures ways of life.We posit the existence of three peting political cultures: hierarchical, individualist, and egalitarian.7 The type of leader ship preferred and feared, and the kinds of support given to and demands made upon we leaders, hypothesize, vary by political culture. to The individualist regime is organized maximize the scope of individual au and thus minimize need a tonomy the for authority. Individualist regimes perform delicate act are balancing between having leaders when they needed and getting rid are not. as of them when they Ideally, they give up only much autonomy as the im mediate engagement requires. Individualists dread most the leader who overstays his welcome. Adherents of individualist regimes know that from the leader flows the and its are tax hierarchy among multitudinous ranks found policemen and collectors. Not the choose not to have the other wanting one, they any longer