Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan

The primary theme running through Neustadt’s 1960 text, which is defended in Part 2 of the 1990 edition, is the president’s ability to affect his own power through the choices he makes. As Neustadt describes it, the extent of the president’s power lies partly (perhaps largely) in his own hands. This is because the president’s choices affect how he is perceived and the extent to which others understand their interests to be aligned with his, among other factors. Others with power, such as congressmen, will base their estimations of whether to support the president’s agenda, the extent to which they can afford to oppose his priorities, and similar calculations on their past experiences or perceptions of him. Therefore, each choice the president makes can increase or squander his power for the future. Accordingly, Neustadt instructs the president to be mindful of how his decisions will affect his future power resources.

Neustadt takes care to distinguish between the presidential “powers,” by which he means the formal constitutional authority to do specific things (like sign a law or officially communicate with foreign nations), and “power,” by which he means the ability to accomplish personal or policy objectives. This book focuses primarily on the latter.