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Four Classification Of President Stephen Skowronek

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Stephen Skowronek attemeped to answer the question that many historians, and people alike, always have trouble answering: what makes a president a good president? Skowronek looks at all the presidents over the course of American history and puts them into one of four classifications. Skowronek looks, in detail, that the presidency of both Clinton and W.Bush. President Barack Obama does not have a classification in this book, so we will attempt to assign him a category based on his work. The American Presidency entails more than meets the eye, and Skowronek is trying to categorize presidents based on more than just what the public sees. Skowronek’s book creates four categories for classifying presidents: Politics of disjunction, politics …show more content…

During this time, there is a split on what direction the nation should go within the parties, and the decision they take end up leaving some in their base feeling left out. Lastly, politics of pre-emption involve the president distancing themselves from the pasts of the party. These presidents are seen as being dishonest from the opposing party, but many of them tend to win a second term. These leaders attempt to find that one big issue to define their presidency. Skowronek classifies President Bill Clinton into the group politics of pre-emption. He categorizes him as this because Clinton set out to offer a “third way”; going away from the politics of conservatives, but not going back to the old liberal way. He attempted to distance himself from the idea that big government is that answer, but he still pushed for a way to have government help the people realize that government is not evil. Clinton did not classify himself as liberal or conservative, but “both and different”. Skowronek says that preemptive presidents are far less likely to be tied up in attempting to satisfy their allies, and Clinton was someone who was not tied to his supporters. Clinton set out to mix up the political process, and that is exactly what preemptive presidents do. When talking about President George W. Bush, it is easy to pick what category he belongs in: politics of articulation. W. Bush was running on the idea that

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