The Beleaguered Presidency

Wildavsky demonstrates how various recent presidents have attempted to escape or overcome their beleaguered status by such devices as focusing on only a few issues or shedding responsibility (or blame) to other actors, or treating policy problems as if they were essentially administrative in nature. The book analyzes the wide divergence on public policy among Democratic and Republican activists and assesses the efforts of presidents from Nixon through Bush to cope, at times successfully, often not, with these divisions.