36 pages • 1 hour read
Richard E. NeustadtPresidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1960A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Presidential Power”
Chapter 7 Summary: “Men in Office”
Chapter 7 gives attention to the presidents as individual men whose personalities and beliefs fit the need to cultivate the power described earlier in the book. In particular, Neustadt gives significant attention to Franklin D. Roosevelt as an excellent (perhaps ideal) fit with the demands of the presidency. Neither Truman nor Eisenhower would fit as neatly.
Roosevelt excelled because he drew information from multiple sources and had relationships with many people in various relevant positions. Further, he kept decisions in his own hands so that he could allow interactions among others to play out and shift his goals or strategy in the manner most optimal for developing his power. Such an approach could appear messy, but Roosevelt played it perfectly and was hugely successful as a result.
Eisenhower, on the other hand, delegated many of the necessary components of decisions, leaving himself with limited sources of information that would generally beset him with little time to articulate and fulfil his decisions. Neustadt suggests that Eisenhower may have needed such a structure.
Neustadt further develops this comparison by examining the backgrounds of the two men. He contrasts Roosevelt’s confident sense that he should be president (following, of course, in the footsteps of his relative, President Theodore Roosevelt) with Eisenhower’s style of selecting experts and following their advice. Roosevelt’s confidence and long preparation explain much of his success, because he was able to concentrate on the political power considerations while retaining the knowledge and insight necessary to make policy decisions.
Finally, Neustadt introduces President Harry Truman into the analysis, noting the importance of the fact that Truman never aimed to be president. The position was thrust upon him by Roosevelt’s death and, therefore, he learned on the job.
Truman demonstrated a confidence in his decisions that often aided his policy aims. Although Truman maintained an order apparently similar to Eisenhower, Truman’s vision was of himself living up to the ideal of the presidency that he held. The confidence he experienced resulted from his ability to do so, but it could either enhance or undercut his power sense. His personal direction functioned similarly.
Thus, Neustadt identifies the president’s “power sense,” confidence, and personal direction as primary factors in understanding how the actual individuals functioned and performed as president during their terms.
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Sixties Come Next”
In the final chapter of the 1960 edition Neustadt explains that not all politicians have the capacity to effectively wield presidential power. What separates those who do it successfully, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, is largely their temperament.
Neustadt compares a president’s skill in using political power to the ingredients necessary to succeed in policy grounds. He maintains that these are a purpose that moves with (not against) history, a manageable administration, and a good sense of timing.
Finally, Neustadt offers his understanding of the environment to be faced by presidents going forward from 1960. While several of these have lost relevance, two points stand out as crucial to Neustadt’s view of presidential power. First, he asserts that presidents’ success or failure will increasingly depend on their personal approaches. Second, he notes that a president cannot be assured of support and, therefore, must engage with a prospective orientation to the cultivation and use of power.
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
In these closing chapters of the original 1960 text Neustadt makes clear that he is assessing the individuals who assume the role of president. The comparison between Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Truman may reveal some of Neustadt’s partisanship (he ultimately served under Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter; he wrote the book during the Eisenhower years). The analysis works nonetheless, partly because there is little denying the extensive success enjoyed by Roosevelt in every realm where the president’s power matters.
In his analysis Neustadt examines character and temperament, or a president’s sense of what he is to do as president, as perhaps the most important element of what is needed to fulfill the role of president in a manner that best serves the American people. While some time is spent looking forward from 1960, the bulk of these two chapters serve to drive home the book’s key enduring points, points that forever changed how the US president is understood and assessed by academic observers, the public, and even presidents themselves.
The book’s core point—that the presidency affords only advantage in terms of the power to persuade, and that the exercise of such power is the main determinate within a president’s control that will affect his success—shines clearly in these chapters. Strikingly, Neustadt suggests that presidents’ personal characteristics will assume an increasingly important role in determining their success or failure. As Part 2 reveals, later events would demonstrate the prophetic truth of such assessments.
