Evaluating the Obama Presidency

In 2007 and 2008, Barack Obama ran for president with a message of a shared purpose uniting all Americans, and was elected with expectations that he would usher in a new national culture under an approach grounded in public engagement that would transcend partisan divisions. But in an institutional system designed for incremental and contested policy-making governance, enacting these transformational ambitions proved to be far more difficult than anticipated.

This innovative volume assesses the legacy of President Obama, with a conceptual focus on the challenge of meeting his goals with the realities of governing. A diverse group of political science, history, and communication studies experts systematically examines Obama’s performance, accomplishments, and shortcomings through the lens of the expectations gap – the tensions and obstacles of translating campaign promises into policies.

The wide, representative set of case studies address campaigning and coalition building, party polarization, presidential communication, executive power, leadership and decision-making, and domestic and foreign policy. With original and deep analysis, these scholars make a unique, enduring contribution to understanding the Obama presidency, the office of the president, and indeed American politics. This insightful, accessible book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the presidency, political communication & rhetoric, and broadly across US government and democracy.

• Provides a variety of disciplinary perspectives and a mix of expert contributors
• Meets the need for a current, timely, unique work on the presidency
• Previously published volumes on Obama’s presidency fail to have a clear unifying conceptual framework

This book offers an important contribution to the emerging literature on the Obama presidency, with both scholarly depth as well as topical breadth.

Lori Cox Han, Doy B. Henley Chair of American Presidential Studies and Director, Presidential Studies Program, Chapman University

The contributors in this study understand the goal of Obama’s leadership was specifically transformational, and that this created both opportunities and challenges for him. They understand that governing is hard, and that understanding it requires attention to administration/ policy/ leadership. And they understand that elections matter and that money matters to elections.

Mary E. Stuckey, Professor, Communication Arts & Sciences, Penn State University

This edited volume addresses a fundamental question: What is the nature of the relationship between campaign promises and governance? Through case studies of the Obama administration’s efforts to translate bold and ambitious campaign promises into effective policymaking and governance, the volume makes an important contribution to the scholarly literature on the Obama administration.

David A. Yalof, Vice Provost of Academic Affairs and Professor of Government, College of William and Mary