How do presidents lead? If presidential power is the power to persuade, why is there a lack of evidence of presidential persuasion? George Edwards, one of the leading scholars of the American ...presidency, skillfully uses this contradiction as a springboard to examine--and ultimately challenge--the dominant paradigm of presidential leadership. The Strategic President contends that presidents cannot create opportunities for change by persuading others to support their policies. Instead, successful presidents facilitate change by recognizing opportunities and fashioning strategies and tactics to exploit them. Edwards considers three extraordinary presidents--Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan--and shows that despite their considerable rhetorical skills, the public was unresponsive to their appeals for support. To achieve change, these leaders capitalized on existing public opinion. Edwards then explores the prospects for other presidents to do the same to advance their policies. Turning to Congress, he focuses first on the productive legislative periods of FDR, Lyndon Johnson, and Reagan, and finds that these presidents recognized especially favorable conditions for passing their agendas and effectively exploited these circumstances while they lasted. Edwards looks at presidents governing in less auspicious circumstances, and reveals that whatever successes these presidents enjoyed also resulted from the interplay of conditions and the presidents' skills at understanding and exploiting them. The Strategic President revises the common assumptions of presidential scholarship and presents significant lessons for presidents' basic strategies of governance.
Overreach Edwards III, George C
2012., 20120325, 2012, 2012-03-25, 20120101
eBook
When Barack Obama became president, many Americans embraced him as a transformational leader who would fundamentally change the politics and policy of the country. Yet, two years into his ...administration, the public resisted his calls for support and Congress was deadlocked over many of his major policy proposals. How could this capable new president have difficulty attaining his goals? Did he lack tactical skills?
InOverreach, respected presidential scholar George Edwards argues that the problem was strategic, not tactical. He finds that in President Obama's first two years in office, Obama governed on the premise that he could create opportunities for change by persuading the public and some congressional Republicans to support his major initiatives. As a result, he proposed a large, expensive, and polarizing agenda in the middle of a severe economic crisis. The president's proposals alienated many Americans and led to a severe electoral defeat for the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections, undermining his ability to govern in the remainder of his term.
Edwards shows that the president's frustrations were predictable and the inevitable result of misunderstanding the nature of presidential power. The author demonstrates that the essence of successful presidential leadership is recognizing and exploiting existing opportunities, not in creating them through persuasion. When Obama succeeded in passing important policies, it was by mobilizing Democrats who were already predisposed to back him. Thus, to avoid overreaching, presidents should be alert to the limitations of their power to persuade and rigorously assess the possibilities for obtaining public and congressional support in their environments.
American presidents often engage in intensive campaigns to obtain public support for their policy initiatives. This core strategy for governing is based on the premise that if presidents are skilled ...enough to exploit the "bully pulpit," they can successfully persuade or even mobilize public opinion on behalf of their legislative goals.
In this book, George Edwards analyzes the results of hundreds of public opinion polls from recent presidencies to assess the success of these efforts. Surprisingly, he finds that presidents typically are not able to change public opinion; even great communicators usually fail to obtain the public's support for their high-priority initiatives. Focusing on presidents' personae, their messages, and the American public, he explains why presidents are often unable to move public opinion and suggests that their efforts to do so may be counterproductive. Edwards argues that shoring up previously existing support is the principal benefit of going public and that "staying private"-negotiating quietly with elites-may often be more conducive to a president's legislative success.
Millions of Americans-including many experienced politicians-viewed Barack Obama through a prism of high expectations, based on a belief in the power of presidential persuasion. Yet many who were ...inspired by candidate Obama were disappointed in what he was able to accomplish once in the White House. They could not understand why he often was unable to leverage his position and political skills to move the public and Congress to support his initiatives.Predicting the Presidencyexplains why Obama had such difficulty bringing about the change he promised, and challenges the conventional wisdom about presidential leadership.
In this incisive book, George Edwards shows how we can ask a few fundamental questions about the context of a presidency-the president's strategic position or opportunity structure-and use the answers to predict a president's success in winning support for his initiatives. If presidential success is largely determined by a president's strategic position, what role does persuasion play? Almost every president finds that a significant segment of the public and his fellow partisans in Congress are predisposed to follow his lead. Others may support the White House out of self-interest. Edwards explores the possibilities of the president exploiting such support, providing a more realistic view of the potential of presidential persuasion.
Written by a leading presidential scholar,Predicting the Presidencysheds new light on the limitations and opportunities of presidential leadership.
Abstract
Magnetically shielded rooms (MSRs) use multiple layers of materials such as MuMetal to screen external magnetic fields that would otherwise interfere with high precision magnetic field ...measurements such as magnetoencephalography (MEG). Optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) have enabled the development of wearable MEG systems which have the potential to provide a motion tolerant functional brain imaging system with high spatiotemporal resolution. Despite significant promise, OPMs impose stringent magnetic shielding requirements, operating around a zero magnetic field resonance within a dynamic range of ± 5 nT. MSRs developed for OPM-MEG must therefore effectively shield external sources and provide a low remnant magnetic field inside the enclosure. Existing MSRs optimised for OPM-MEG are expensive, heavy, and difficult to site. Electromagnetic coils are used to further cancel the remnant field inside the MSR enabling participant movements during OPM-MEG, but present coil systems are challenging to engineer and occupy space in the MSR limiting participant movements and negatively impacting patient experience. Here we present a lightweight MSR design (30% reduction in weight and 40–60% reduction in external dimensions compared to a standard OPM-optimised MSR) which takes significant steps towards addressing these barriers. We also designed a ‘window coil’ active shielding system, featuring a series of simple rectangular coils placed directly onto the walls of the MSR. By mapping the remnant magnetic field inside the MSR, and the magnetic field produced by the coils, we can identify optimal coil currents and cancel the remnant magnetic field over the central cubic metre to just |
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|= 670 ± 160 pT. These advances reduce the cost, installation time and siting restrictions of MSRs which will be essential for the widespread deployment of OPM-MEG.
This is the third edition of the definitive text on the unique system by which Americans choose a presidents, and why that system should be changed. It is a critique of the U.S. Electoral College and ...includes a new chapter focusing on the 2016 election.
The Snail family of zinc-finger transcription factors are evolutionarily conserved proteins that control processes requiring cell movement. Specifically, they regulate epithelial-to-mesenchymal ...transitions (EMT) where an epithelial cell severs intercellular junctions, degrades basement membrane and becomes a migratory, mesenchymal-like cell. Interestingly, Slug expression has been observed in angiogenic endothelial cells (EC) in vivo, suggesting that angiogenic sprouting may share common attributes with EMT. Here, we demonstrate that sprouting EC in vitro express both Slug and Snail, and that siRNA-mediated knockdown of either inhibits sprouting and migration in multiple in vitro angiogenesis assays. We find that expression of MT1-MMP, but not of VE-Cadherin, is regulated by Slug and that loss of sprouting as a consequence of reduced Slug expression can be reversed by lentiviral-mediated re-expression of MT1-MMP. Activity of MMP2 and MMP9 are also affected by Slug expression, likely through MT1-MMP. Importantly, we find enhanced expression of Slug in EC in human colorectal cancer samples compared with normal colon tissue, suggesting a role for Slug in pathological angiogenesis. In summary, these data implicate Slug as an important regulator of sprouting angiogenesis, particularly in pathological settings.
Donald Trump came to the presidency claiming a unique proficiency in negotiating deals. Once in office, however, he floundered. He adopted a passive approach to agenda setting, putting him in a ...reactive mode. Although he received high levels of support from Republicans in both chambers of Congress and although their leaders kept votes that he might lose off the agenda, Congress passed little significant legislation at his behest. The president received historically low levels of support from Democratic senators and representatives and could not win congressional assent for new healthcare policy, immigration reform, or infrastructure spending. Government shutdowns and symbolic slaps at his foreign policies characterized his tenure, even with his party in control of the legislature. He was even less successful after Democrats gained control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.
The Bully in the Pulpit Edwards, George C.
Presidential studies quarterly,
June 2020, 2020-06-00, 20200601, Letnik:
50, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Both the tone and substance of Donald Trump's public rhetoric are far beyond the norms of the presidency. In this article, I discuss prominent characteristics of the president's public ...discourse—including branding and delegitimizing opponents, fueling fear, prevaricating, and stoking divisions—and their consequences for both the president's attempts at leadership and the polity as a whole. I find that Trump's public discourse has diminished his ability to govern and has also been deleterious for American democracy.
The immune tumor microenvironment (TME) of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) carries both effector and suppressive functions. To define immune correlates of chemotherapy-induced tumor involution, we ...performed longitudinal evaluation of biomarker expression on serial biological specimens collected during intraperitoneal (IP) platinum-based chemotherapy. Serial biological samples were collected at several time points during IP chemotherapy. RNA from IP fluid cells and tumor tissue was analyzed via NanoString. Meso Scale Discovery (MSD) multiplex assay and ELISA for MUC1 antibodies were performed on plasma and IP fluid. Differentially expressed genes in IP fluid demonstrate an upregulation of B cell function and activation of Th2 immune response along with dampening of Th1 immunity during chemotherapy. MSD analysis of IP fluid and gene expression analysis of tumor tissue revealed activation of Th2 immunity and the complement system. Anti-MUC1 antibodies were detected in IP fluid samples. IP fluid analysis in a secondary cohort also identified chemotherapy-induced B cell function genes. This study shows that serial IP fluid sampling is an effective method to capture changes in the immune TME during chemotherapy and reveals treatment induced changes in B cell function and Th2 immunity.
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