What Does the American Presidency Mean?

The Need for Interpretation in Presidency Studies
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-041-03681-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 160 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 386 g

Reihe: Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods

What Does the American Presidency Mean? The Need for Interpretation in Presidency Studies makes a compelling case for how interpretivism contributes to our understanding of the American presidency.

This brief book is accessible and inviting, regardless of a reader’s background in presidency studies or interpretivism. Part I explores several dimensions of interpretivist and positivist methodologies. Chapters discuss the characteristics of interpretivism, genealogically trace positivism’s dominance in presidency studies, and identify how attributes of the presidency that raise methodological challenges for positivism are the same that make it fertile ground for interpretivism. Part II explores a wide range of interpretive scholarship on the American presidency, including studies of presidential meaning making, the institution’s historical-political development, presidential symbolism, the construction of the presidency, and the presidential spectacle. It concludes with an interpretation of recent developments emphasizing the timeliness, relevance, and importance of methodological pluralism in presidency studies.

The book is written for anyone interested in the meaning of the presidency, whether scholars or graduate students in American political science, or those from other disciplines within and outside the United States. It is appropriate for courses on the American Presidency, Executive Politics, Political Communication, Rhetoric, and Social Science Methods, among others.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Undergraduate Advanced, and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Holtzman, Richard

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Studien zu einzelnen Ländern und Gebieten
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Zentralregierung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

PART I: Two Social Science Methodologies Introduction to the Book and Part I: What Does It Mean to Interpret the Presidency? 1. Characteristics of Interpretive Research 2. Methodological Positivism’s History of “Progress” in Presidency Studies 3. “The Interpretable Presidency” Revisited PART II: Interpretive Presidency Research and Its Relevance Introduction to Part II: The American Presidency is Rhetorical/Meaningful 4. How Does the American Presidency Mean? 5. What Does the American Presidency Mean?

Über Autor(innen)

Richard Holtzman is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Politics, Law, and Society at Bryant University. Holtzman's teaching and research focus on American Politics, and he has published on Presidential Rhetoric and on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.