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Presidential Choice and White House Agenda Setting: a Review of the Literature By Brent M. Eastwood, PhD (2004)
How are agenda decisions made in the White House? Presidential agenda setting can be broken down into several integrative components of presidential choice: Influence, Style and Character, Decision making, the Shrinking or Derivative Agenda, and Organizational Behavior. Influence is what Neustadt (1990) called the power to persuade. Style and character issues can also determine the efficacy of a Presidents persuasive powers and his propensity to choose one alternative over another. Decision making involves harnessing the power of organizations and bureaucracies within the state. It also involves understanding how presidential decisions influence the political agenda or how outside events lead the President to choose. Issues, priorities, and alternatives change and decrease in number. Moreover, a Presidents influence ebbs and flows depending on the electoral clock, the whims of public opinion, and random events. There is no time for learning on the job; policy windows close fast. Light (1999) calls this the No Win Presidency or Derivative Agenda. Organizational behavior can work to heighten these problems with behavioral or bureaucratic friction. The structure and the environment of the White House can play a role in the success of the Presidents agenda setting as well as the White Houses successful or unsuccessful interactions with the rest of the Executive Branch. These integrative components of presidential choice make up only one dimension. It is also necessary to address theoretical concerns such as Gleiber and Schulls (1992, p. 444) interpretation of Neustadt, that of influence defined as the conversion of

2 preferences into government outputs. Gleiber and Schull (1992) link influence to presidential preferences and resources and translate it into policy preferences. Edwards and Barrett (2000) outline three sources of White House influence: service, incentives, and persuasion. The Behavioral Theory from Cyert and March (1963) seek to leave no member of the organization dissatisfied so choices are usually constrained to the next best option. Allisons Model III concept of bureaucratic politics relegates choice to bureaucratic turf-guarding in which ones views depend on where one sits. The Garbage Can theory and model from Cohen, March, and Olsen (1972) and Multiple Streams theory from Kingdon (2003) are the result of different streams such as problems, solutions, and participants (Light 1999) flowing with their own dynamic independence. There are a variety of continuous problems in this construct, so each choice situation acts as a garbage can and problems search for choices (Mohr 1976). The Multiple Streams theory portrays the development of policy proposals as evolutionary in a Policy Primeval Soup (Kingdon, 2003, p.226). Researchers such as Zahariadis (2003) make a case for the role of ambiguity in agenda setting. He extends the work of Kingdon to include the scarcity of attention, the search for solutions, and the manipulation of strategies. Other theories affecting Presidential choice comes from the foreign policy decision making literature. The debate on domestic factors such as internal factors (elections, public opinion, and the economy) driving foreign policy decision making as opposed to national interest or external events dominates much of the discourse in this area. Multiple Advocacy (George 1972, p. 751) is the notion that a diversity of views is more advantageous than centralized management practices. Wood and Peake (1998)

3 explore the lack of theory concerning agenda setting in foreign policy since foreign policy is often event driven and policy subsystems and venue shopping do not apply. Finally, the methodological dimension covers a wide range of techniques from interviews to logistical regression analysis. I will explain other methodological examples involved in the Presidential choice and agenda setting literature such as: measuring presidential positions on roll call votes, Poisson regression analysis of Presidential speeches, responsiveness of media to Presidential issues based on length of time devoted to each issue in the evening news, case studies based on the Presidents daily diary. Historical case studies during the Vietnam-era and an analysis of the Congressional Quarterly presidential box score. Neustadt (1990) remains the pre-eminent work in this literature. He defines choice as a Presidents own act of doing or not doing. This is thought to be separate from decision making because a President is often indecisive. Neustadt notes that these

presidential choices are rarely black or white. Often presidential choice is influenced by advisors, but Neustadt notes that these advisors do not sit where the President sits, and do not have ultimate responsibility. The President has the most personal power and, therefore, can not act like his advisors or laymen. He must accept accountability and help himself to see. Problems are inherent in this theory because there have been Presidents who have taken their personal power to extremes. Nixon made inexplicable choices during Watergate that flew in the face of Neustadts views on personal power, influence, and choice. Reagan made damaging choices in the Iran-Contra scandal. Clinton later made damaging choices that overshadowed his success. Does the Neustadt view of personal power and influence lead to too much narcissism and poor choice-

4 making? Neustadt would say poor decision-making by Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs and Carter during the Lance affair was due to inexperience, ignorance, and the failure to weigh the risks of certain options appropriately. Nixon and Clinton could not make the same defense. Both of their scandals happened in later stages of the term after they had appropriate time to learn and adjust to the job. Thus the Neustadt paradigm of choice; relying on a self-help based on personal power, prestige, and influence is not applicable to all Presidents. Neustadts views on influence begin a literature on presidential influence on the US Congress. The essence of a Presidents persuasive task, with congressmen and everybody else, is to induce them to believe that what he wants of them is what their own appraisal of their own responsibilities require them to do in their interest, not his (Neustadt 1990, p. 40). Neustadt writes that public prestige determines a Presidents ability to persuade. Under this construct, prestige is not the same as Presidential approval. Rivers and Rose (1985) updated Neustadts work by attempting to tap public opinion and presidential influence in Congress. The relationship between these two variables has depended on the form and content of the legislative program and on the strategic situation in Congress (Rivers and Rose 1985, 185). The authors noted that the Presidents influence is weakest when policy demands are greatest, that Congress counts on the President to set an agenda that it can react to or respond against (Neustadt 1990). Their main findings have to do with Presidents behaving strategically in submitting their programs to Congress. As a result, party strength and legislative success are tied to public opinion on presidential job rating. However, the authors claim that personal

5 qualities will not save the president in this situation. Long periods of unemployment and inflation lead to low approval and stalled agendas in Congress. Unfortunately, it is during these periods when policy changes are needed the most. Although the results of this study are not surprising, it is an important attempt to operationalize and specify the variable of presidential influence. Gleiber and Schull (1992) attempted to model presidential messages as a manifestation including variables on party strength and approval. They find no differences in results from earlier findings, only that presidential influence varies depending on the actor targeted. The authors conclude that future studies can not depend on future bivariate or multivariate models. What is missing from their work is a richer policy model built on the temporal stages of presidential influence. While many researchers accepted the Neustadt view on roles of presidential influence, they differed on the elements of the process which leads Presidents to choose certain issues over others. Andrade and Young (1995) chose the arena of foreign policy to investigate the extent of this presidential emphasis. The authors found that approval, presidential influence in Congress, and international events affect presidential emphasis on foreign policy (Andrade and Young 1995, p. 591). The authors introduced a temporal element into their analysis by examining presidential speeches over a 40-year period. They found that time in office is negatively correlated to number of foreign policy issues indicating that as Presidents grew settled in office, they were, on average, able to focus more on domestic policy. They concluded that context ultimately has more say in what Presidents promote on their foreign policy agendas. The significance of this study is its reliance of process-oriented features of agenda setting, rather than the end-

6 game measures of policy successes. The authors also claim that their findings show that agenda setting can switch from domestic to foreign policy in order to build prestige or national interest if domestic policy is meeting resistance in Congress. Edwards and Wood (1999) also seek answers in the wider laboratory of agenda setting on domestic and foreign policy issues. Instead of analyzing a single dependent variable such as political use of force, and its relation to domestic, political, and international dimension, they broadened the scope. Edwards and Wood focused on three institutions: the President, Congress, and the media. They attempted to measure three

domestic issues and two foreign policy issues. An ambitious use of content analysis on Presidential documents, television newscasts, and congressional hearings found that Presidents seem to react to events rather than shaping the policy agenda. The authors found domestic policy to have more potential at being shaped and brought to the agenda using then media or Congress. Bush Sr. and Clinton emerge salient on these points: Clinton with attempts at agenda setting with health care and Bush Sr. with the education issue in Congress. It is significant these findings emerge over time. And it is somewhat troubling that Congress has such weak influence over the President since it is supposed to operate in a role of oversight. A Presidents personal style and character can influence choice in regard to agenda setting. This strain of research claims that personality is patterned and shapes presidential behavior. Barbers (1985) case work on presidential character is based on attention to issues, the facts and persons he sees relevant to the issue, and the principles and purposes he associates with the issue (Barber 1985, p. 4). Character is the way the President orients toward lifehow he confronts himself. Barber outlines four types of

7 presidential character: active-positive, active-negative, passive-positive, and positivenegative. Active-positive Presidents want most to achieve results. Active-negatives aim to get and to keep power while Passive-positives are after love. Passive-negatives emphasize their civic virtue (Barber 1985, p. 10). This work leans heavily on psychology and is not without its critics. It does not take into account the institutional and contextual realities of the Presidency and is too character-driven. It is, however, reasonable to accept personality differences as a factor in decision making as personal style plays some role in the attention to issues. Sorensen (1963) contributed one of the first models for White House decision making. He offers an ideal step-by-step process: agree on the facts, agree on the overall policy objective, define the problem, list all solutions, list the consequences that would flow from these solutions, make a choice, communicate that selection, and provide for an execution plan. This rational choice style of decision making has its problems. The model assumes perfect information and unlimited time. However, presidential options are usually constrained by domestic pressures such as the election cycle, state of the economy, public opinion, the media, etc. Sorensen (1963) also cites personal factors such as self-confidence and self-assertion as being relevant to the judgment required in decision making. But perhaps even more important in the bureaucratic model, as Allison and Zelikow (1999) point out, is the notion of parochialism or where you stand is where you sit. Despite all the lofty importance and urgency of the crisis, teamwork among the differing coalitions was and is not natural. According to Allison, Coalitions compete, persuade, confuse, and obscure. This is also usually done with the best of intentions.

8 Allison uses the chief or Indian metaphor to explain that t is not always which agency you belong to, but also your position of power in either management or staff roles. These outgrowths can serve to stint the information process. The overwhelming evidence of Allisons Conceptual Model III in the Cuban Missile Crisis should be clear. Domestic political constraints and historical norms shape the players beliefs and actions. Interagency turf battles shade course of action development. Parochialism determines where one stands on certain issues. Standard operating procedures slow decision-making by filtering and obscuring details. Experts massage data to further their agenda, stray from their area of expertise, and act according to the interests of their agency. This limits the presidents decision making options. George (1972) sought to offer an alternative solution to the problems of bureaucratic politics and internal dissent. He recommended the practice of multiple advocacy in which presidents seek the counsel of a diverse number of viewpoints instead of relying on centralized and hierarchical practices. This mixed system encourages debate and greater critical examination before the decision is made. Other features of the system are honest broker agents such as the National Security Council and National Security Advisor and the importance of someone in the organization playing devils advocate. The problem with this system is that crises are time sensitive and the President and his staff rarely have time to utilize all its features, even if they are lucky to have the multiple advocacy system in place. It is not practical for all advisors to advise the President on every issue. Mechanisms to deal with internal dissent hope to smooth some of the problems associated with decision making. Sometimes the challenges are trumped by domestic

9 political forces; other times domestic factors emerge as more significant. Meernik (1994) and Wang (1996) examine this issue as they investigate the role of domestic pressures on the Presidents decision to use military force. Meernik (1994) found that Americas own domestic reputation and its sensitivity to the threat of nations overseas defense commitments were significant variables that affected the decision to use military force. He found that domestic factors do not play as big a role as thought. Wang (1996) found that domestic political factors such as the electoral cycle, economic difficulties, and presidential support in Congress affect decision making (Wang 1996, p. 92). It seems clear from these two studies that the President has a myriad of concerns when seeking approval for a decision to deploy troops overseas. The President must have domestic political capital before accomplishing anything in the White House. He must choose the most important issues facing the country. Light (1999) sees the presidential agenda setting process as a signal as it indicates what the President finds to be the most appropriate alternatives for solving the problems. It identifies what the President deems the highest priorities (Light 1999, p. 3). Light (1999) explains how character, personality, and decision making style converge to influence presidential choice. He reviews three models of choice outlined before: rational actor, bureaucratic politics, and the garbage can/multiple streams. All of these approaches to choice are affected by the context of the decision making situation. Sometimes organizations revert back to Standard Operating Procedures. They sometimes avoid uncertainty, avoid long-term planning, deal with issues as they arise, and fail to resolve conflict. Light (199) recommends that multiple advocacy is an alternative to further problems inherent in groupthinkwhen organization members allow the need for

10 consensus to dissuade creativity and encourage closed-mindedness. This results in faulty decision making. The President is severely limited when choices are presented to him. He does not necessarily see all the choices; many have been eliminated without his consent. Organizational factors are thus critical in the transition from policy alternatives. The cycle of decreasing discretion focuses on organizational dynamics. Lights views on presidential choice, despite a rehash of present theory, are then paramount to his Walcott and Hult (1987) also focus on organizational structure of the White House and claim that the President has political opportunity in this construct. Strategies such as decision streaming give the President the ability to handle different classes of decisions in different ways (Walcott and Hult 1987, p. 122). Multiple advocacy is not always the best course. Some decisions do not over-analysis and a complicated, step-bystep procedure. Too much information can be a bad thing, so the type of decisionmaking structure used depends on the situation. Kessels (1983) look at the organizational structure of the Carter White House shows communication disconnect among staff members that was based on political ideology. Four different types of structures based on policy-type emerged. The resulting confusion and fragmentation contributed to the Carter administrations difficulty in enunciating clear policy goals (Kessel 1983, p. 431). Theory on presidential choice is dominated by Kingdons (2003) Multiple Streams model. Kingdon does not deny the existence of incrementalism in policy making. Policy changes very gradually, in small steps (Kingdon 2003, p. 79). It is simply easier and more prudent to make small adjustments to existing programs instead

11 of reinventing the wheel with sweeping changes. This takes less time and resources and is often less controversial. Incrementalism also pertains to budgets and its constraints on policy analysts and lawmakers. However, Kingdon asserts that incrementalism only covers part of the story and that policy change is also nonincremental. An alternative model, the Garbage Can model, is based on how people interact within a policymaking organization. This construct is based on ideas and it describes how ideas and problems float around in organized anarchies. Under this model, organizations have no clear mission, people do not understand their co-workers jobs, and there is rarely a clear-cut group of decision-makers. These streams ultimately mix into a garbage can and the ensuing solutions depend on how the garbage is processed. An overlying strength of this theory is its attempt to explain how problems are recognized by policy makers. Problems, as discussed before, are complex and often do not warrant solutions. Many streams compete for attention, focusing events dominate the political landscape, budgets drive policy concerns, and problems in turn lose prominence. Zahariadis (2003) builds on the Kingdon model by adding concepts of attention, search, and selection. He claims that institutional structure strongly affects attention as structure can act to filter issues as they rise up to politicians. Policy communities and subsystems affect the extent to which policy makers search for issues in the policy primeval soup. The effectiveness of policy searches also depend on how well the system is integrated. Selection of issues includes strategies such as framing or manipulation using symbols. Although Zahariadis was attempting to compare his ideas of ambiguity and choice to parliamentary systems, his theory building on organized anarchies is an important addition to the theoretical literature on choice.

12 Most of the research methods which concern Presidential choice are qualitative in nature. The seminal work of Neustadt and Allison are case studies. Kingdon and Light primarily used a series of interviews. Of course, small N problems abound when researching American Presidents. One is limited to the amount of documents available and people who are still alive in which to interview. Presidential scholars make use of textual analysis of speeches, Public Papers of the President, news conferences, Congressional Quarterly, etc. Andrade and Young (1995) ambitious collection of 40-years worth of Presidential comments in speech making and news conferences stands out for its richness, breadth, and use of time series data. The authors claimed that measuring speech content is a more direct gauge of the presidents agenda because the President has incentives for public support of his agenda and that his comments affect the agenda. Most important, the analysis shows substantial variation in the number of foreign policy speeches over the 40year period. Pritchard (1983) attempted to redefine and measure the notion of presidential influence. Pritchard claimed that Presidential Support Scores based on Congressional Quarterly (an analysis index of legislation the president supports) is inadequate. Pritchards study asked Does the President influence voting decisions? And not as, multivariate analysis does What proportion of the variance can be attributed to presidential leadership? (Pritchard 1983, p. 693). Edwards and Woods (1999) methods are also important to mention. Content analysis of Public Papers of the President and newscasts from the Vanderbilt News Archives show this technique can be used for explanatory effect in the study of decision

13 making. This study can be used as precedent for other studies which use content analysis of the media and other public documents on comparative public policy (agenda setting) or decision-making in comparative foreign policy analysis. Presidential choice presents a wide and rich literature ranging from influence, style and character, decision making, and organizational behavior. It has contributions from American Politics, International Relations, and Comparative Public Policy. Theory is dominated by Allisons Model III concept of bureaucratic politics, Multiple Streams, and the Garbage Can Theory. It is clear that the President faces a myriad of pressure and constraints when making choices concerning agenda setting. How well the President handles these pressures and constraints--through organizational reforms or more efficient decision makingcan be the barometer by which his presidential legacy is gauged.

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Works Cited Allison, Graham T. and Philip Zelikow. 1999. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd Ed. New York: Longman. Andrade, Lydia and Garry Young. 1995. Presidential Agenda Setting: Influences on the Emphasis of Foreign Policy. Political Research Quarterly. 49:573-590. Barber, James David. 1985. The Presidential Character. London: Prentice-Hall, Intl. Bernstein, Barton J. 2000. Understanding Decision Making, US Foreign Policy, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. International Security. 25:134-164. Cohen, Michael D., and James D. March, and J.P. Olsen. 1972. A Garbage Model of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly. 17:1-25. Cyert, Richard M. and James G. March. 1963. A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Edwards, George C. III and B. Dan Wood. Who Influences Whom? The President, Congress, and the Media. 1999. American Political Science Review. 93: 327344. Edwards, George C. III and Andrew Barrett. 2000. Presidential Agenda Setting in Congress. Polarized Politics: Congress and the President in a Partisan Era. Edited by Jon R. Bond and Richard Fleisher. Washington DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. George, Alexander. 1972. The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy. The American Political Science Review. 66:751-785. Gleiber, Dennis W. and Steven A. Shull. 1992. Presidential Influence in the Policymaking Process. The Western Political Quarterly. 45: 441-467. Greenstein, Fred I. and John P. Burke. 1990. The Dynamics of Presidential Reality Testing: Evidence from Two Vietnam Decisions. Political Science Quarterly. 4:557-580. Kessel, John H. 1983. The Structure of the Carter White House. American Journal of Political Science. 27:431-463. Kingdon, John W. 2003. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. New York: A.B. Longman.

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Legro, Jeffrey. 2000. The Transformation of Policy Ideas. American Journal of Political Science. 44:419-432. Light, Paul C. 1999. The Presidents Agenda. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Meernik, James. 1994. Presidential Decision Making and the Political Use of Military Force. International Studies Quarterly. 38:121-138. Mintz, Alex. 1993. The Decision to Attack Iraq: A Noncompensatory Theory of Decision Making. The Journal of Conflict Resolution. 37: 595-618. Mohr, Lawrence B. 1976. Organizations, Decisions, and Courts. Law and Society Review. 10:621-42. Neustadt, Richard E. 1990. Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan. 3rd Ed. New York: The Free Press. Pritchard, Anita. 1983. Presidents Do Influence Voting in the U.S. Congress: New Definitions and Measurements. Legislative Studies Quarterly. 8: 691-711. Rivers, Douglas and Nancy L. Rose. 1985. Passing the Presidents Program: Public Opinion and Presidential Influence in Congress. American Journal of Political Science. 29:183-196. Schafer, Mark and Scott Crichlow. 1996. Antecedents of Groupthink: A Quantitative Study. Journal of Conflict Resolution. 40:415-435. Sigelman, Lee. 1980. White House Decision Making Under Stress: a Case Analysis. American Journal of Political Science. 24:652-673. Sorensen, Theodore C. 1963. Decision Making in the White House: The Olive Branch or the Arrows. New York: Columbia University Press. Walcott, Charles and Hult, Karen M. 1987. Organizing the White House: Structure, Environment and Organizational Governance. American Journal of Political Science. 31:109-125. Wang, Kevin H. 1996. Presidential Responses to Foreign Policy Crises: Rational Choice and Domestic Politics. The Journal of Conflict Resolution. 40:68-97. Wood, B. Dan and Jeffrey S. Peake. 1998. The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Agenda Setting. The American Political Science Review. 92: 173-184.

16 Zahariadis, Nikolas. 2003. Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy: Political Decision Making in Modern Democracies. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.