The Presidential Leadership Dilemma: Between the Constitution and a Political Party. Edited by Julia R. Azari , Lara M. Brown , and Zim G. Nwokora . Albany: SUNY Press, 2013. 247 pp.

The Presidential Leadership Dilemma: Between the Constitution and a Political Party. Edited by Julia R. Azari, Lara M. Brown, and Zim G. Nwokora. Albany: SUNY Press, 2013. 247 pp. The Presidential Leadership Dilemma's collection of new research tackles a timely and compelling question: can presidents reconcile their national and partisan responsibilities to lead effectively? Members of the other two branches must also weigh their constitutional and institutional duties with attachments to specific constituencies, but the president's version of this "leadership dilemma" plays out in full public view daily. While the Constitution largely puts the executive branch in this precarious position, which has plagued all presidents in one way or another, Julia R. Azari, Lara M. Brown, and Zim G. Nwokora argue in their introductory chapter that this tension "seems to push and pull with greater force in the contemporary era" (p. 4), due to high expectations for presidential power over the past century and the intensely charged partisan environment. If one agrees with the editors' premise that "leadership is the essence of the presidency" (p. 4), then it is indeed important that scholars sort out the endogenous (individual) factors in presidential success, such as the power of persuasion (Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan [Free Press, 1990]), from exogenous (historical and electoral) constraints, such as "political time" (Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush [Belknap Press, 1997], p. 30). Four of the book's chapters examine the electoral and legislative coalition-building challenges that dot these presidential minefields. Nwokora's contribution creates a typology of nomination pathways, illuminated by miniature case studies, to assess "which route places a candidate in the best position to navigate the leadership dilemma" (p. 35). Brown examines the challenge facing presidents as they endure and absorb their first congressional midterm election. Through a model of third-year leadership choices, Brown argues that presidential "opportunism" is key to short- and long-term success in reframing the president's national or partisan legacy (p. 64). Lilly J. Goren examines the leadership dilemma in coalition-building through a history of the automatic base closure process, highlighting how President Bill Clinton's aggressive "third way" leadership style contrasted with the more subdued roles of his predecessors and successors in the process (p. 114). Benjamin A. Copeland and Victoria A. Farrar-Myers focus on another side of domestic military policy in the history and repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" (p. 139). In addition to the obvious shift in public opinion over 17 years, they conclude that President Barack Obama has led the military and Congress toward his preferences more skillfully than did President Clinton. Two contributions to the volume concentrate on the leadership dilemma in the exercise of formal executive power. Daniel E. Ponder operationalizes the public opinion and institutional ingredients of presidential leverage. Ponder argues that "to understand a president's place in the system, one needs to understand how that 'place' situates the president in relation to public perception and trust in the government as a whole" (p. 106). Christopher S. Kelley, Bryan W. Marshall, and Deanna J. Watts look at how unified and divided government shape the underappreciated "rhetorical signing statement" that comes from executive agencies and political advisors (as opposed to the constitutional signing statement, largely forged in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department). …