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Pushing the Agenda: Presidential Leadership in U.S. Lawmaking, 1953–2004. By Matthew N. Beckmann

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2012

Matthew N. Green*
Affiliation:
Catholic University of America

Extract

Pushing the Agenda: Presidential Leadership in U.S. Lawmaking, 1953–2004. By Matthew N. Beckmann. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 194p. $99.00 cloth, $26.99 paper.

The American president is many things. He serves as the head of state, chief of his political party, manager of the national bureaucracy, commander of the armed forces, and even (to some at least) a moral leader of the country. But one of the most important roles of the president is legislative leader: setting the nation's policy agenda, proposing new bills, and steering key initiatives through Congress. The central nature of that role is evidenced by our tendency to think of past presidents in terms of their trademark policy proposals, be it Harry “Fair Deal” Truman or Ronald Reagan's “Reaganomics.”

Type
Critical Dialogue
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012

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