United States Presidency Centre

Events | Publications | Outreach | Organisers | Links

The Institute for the Study of the Americas has launched its United States Presidency Centre to coincide with a presidential election that has generated unprecedented international interest. The new centre will provide a forum for research and analysis of the presidency in terms of its historical, political and cultural significance. It will also hold regular events on the developing agenda of the next American president in the fields of foreign, economic and domestic policy.

Read more about the background to the establishment of the Centre, as outlined at the Centre's launch on 24 October 2008.

United States Presidency Centre UK Survey of US Presidents

Franklin D. Roosevelt is first; George W. Bush in bottom ten; Barack Obama highly rated

The United States Presidency Centre [USPC] of the Institute for the Study of the Americas has conducted the first ever UK scholarly survey of US presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush.

In total, 47 UK specialists on US history and politics rated the performance of presidents from 1789 to 2009 in five categories: (i) vision/agenda-setting; (ii) domestic leadership; (iii) foreign policy leadership; (iv) moral authority; and (v) positive historical significance of their legacy. They also gave an interim assessment of Barack Obama but his unfinished presidency was not included in the survey. In contrast to US polls, Franklin D. Roosevelt received top rating over Abraham Lincoln and George Washington respectively. George W. Bush occupied the lowest position of any recent president.

Overall there were significant transatlantic differences but also similarities revealed in the UK survey that testifies to the breadth of interest in US politics and history on the part of British scholars. To see the full results and an analysis by the USPC director, Professor Iwan Morgan, go to:

UK Survey of US Presidents

Major For Coming Event: UK Survey of US Presidents - Results and Analysis

Hosted by Professor Iwan Morgan, USPC Director, Institute for the Study of the Americas

6.00 pm, 17 January 2011, Macmillan Hall, Senate House, Ground Floor, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

The United States Presidency Centre (USPC) of the Institute for the Study of the Americas has conducted the first ever UK scholarly survey of US presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush (with an interim assessment of Barack Obama). In total 47 UK specialists on American history and politics have rated presidential performance in five categories: (i) vision/agenda-setting; (ii) domestic leadership; (iii) foreign policy leadership; (iv) moral authority; and (v) positive historical significance of legacy.

Survey results will go live on this website at 5.00 pm on January 17, 2011

Professor Iwan Morgan, USPC director, will comment in his talk on why some presidents are so highly rated, others so lowly rated, and others still put in the middling category. He will also discuss how recent presidents fared in the survey and how Barack Obama is measured in relationship to the presidents of the past. Come along to hear his analysis of this unique UK survey.

To register: e-mail olga.jimenez@sas.ac.uk

Publications

The Centre also publishes edited collections of essays that are based on conference and symposia proceedings on presidency-related subjects conducted under its auspices.

Relevant titles published by or in association with the Institute:

Barack Obama’s Democracy Promotion after One Year, by Nicolas Bouchet, published in e-International Relations, February 2010

The Quiet Democrat, by Nicolas Bouchet, PhD student, Institute for the Study of the Americas, published in The World Today July 2009 Vol. 65 No. 7

The Age of Deficits: Presidents and Unbalanced Budgets from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, by Iwan Morgan

The debate over the federal budget—and the deficit spending it tends to produce—has assumed a renewed urgency for reasons that are painfully clear to all of us. Over the past thirty-two years—from the presidency of Jimmy Carter through that of George W. Bush—the U.S. government has in fact balanced its budget in only four of them, while the fiscal challenges confronting President Obama make a balanced budget anytime soon a remote possibility. This book provides a much-needed historical perspective on this perennially troubling issue. Published November 2009, Kansas University Press. More details.

The Age of Deficits: Presidents and Unbalanced Budgets from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush won the American Politics Group's 2010 Richard Neustadt Book Prize.

The chair of the judges, Professor Robert Singh (Birkbeck), offered the following praise for Professor Morgan’s work:

The Age of Deficits is a truly impressive work of scholarship. Iwan Morgan's thorough immersion in the changing politics of budget deficits takes a panoramic sweep, from the Founding Fathers to Barack Obama. Erudite, carefully reasoned and utilising a formidable array of source material, this monograph is not only timely but also represents a genuinely important contribution to our understanding of what is likely to remain a, if not the, central force shaping US politics for many years to come. Iwan's study is a very worthy winner of the Neustadt Prize.

Federal Nation book cover The Federal Nation: Perspectives on American Federalism, by Iwan W. Morgan and Philip J. Davies

This volume gathers contributors from both the US and UK to provide a comparative examination of federalism in the Bush era, a period of huge change in national politics, but also one of significant shifts in US federalism in relation to social and socioeconomic issues. Published February 2009, Palgrave Macmillan. More details.

The Political Economy of the Public Budget in the Americas, edited by Diego Sánchez-Ancochea and Iwan Morgan

This volume draws together the work of political economy specialists from Latin America, the United States and Europe. Its innovative approach provides a multi-disciplinary comparison of fiscal and tax policies in Latin America and the United States. Published December 2008, Institute for the Study of the Americas. More details.

Right On? Political Change and Continuity in George W. Bush’s America, edited by Iwan Morgan and Philip Davies

George W. Bush is widely regarded as a president of transformative significance. This volume of essays analyses the ambitious but controversial agenda that he has pursued at home and abroad. The contributors assess Bush's presidency in terms of its historical context, first-term record and second-term prospects. Published 2006, Institute for the Study of the Americas. More details.

Outreach

Finally an important part of the United States Presidency Centre’s mission is to promote broader understanding of the presidency within the context of American politics and government beyond the community of scholars. To this end, it will engage in outreach activities to non-academic audiences through public lectures, school visits and media interviews.

The centre will issue an electronic newsletter twice a year. Anyone wishing to be on the circulation list should inform Agnieszka Gillespie on agnieszka.gillespie@sas.ac.uk

Organisers

The Director of the United States Presidency Centre is Professor Iwan Morgan, Head of US Programmes at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, and its deputy director is Dr Tim Lynch, Senior Lecturer in US Foreign Policy at the Institute for the Study of the Americas. They are supported by an advisory body of the following external scholars: Professor Philip Davies (Eccles Centre, British Library); Professor John Dumbrell (Durham University); Professor James Pfiffner (George Mason University); Professor Andrew Rudalevige (Dickinson College); Professor Robert Singh (Birkbeck College) and Professor Mark White (Queen Mary, London).

The new centre looks forward to an active and wide-ranging programme in its first year of operation and beyond.