Stephen Skowronek
Biographic Data
| ID | 364675 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen Skowronek |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen |
| FAMILY NAME | Skowronek |
| SIGNATURE | SKOWRONEK S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4454-9014 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 547 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The Adaptability Paradox: An Overview
A View from the Precipice
Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal
Response to Andrew Karch and Shanna Rose’s Review of The Policy State: An American Predicament
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Adaptability Paradox: Constitutional Resilience and Principles of Good Government in Twenty-First-Century America
Faith in the resilience of the US Constitution prompts many observers to discount evidence of a deepening crisis of governance in our day. A long history of success in navigating tough times and adapting to new circumstances instills confidence that the fundamentals of the system are sound and the institutions self-correcting. The aim of this article is to push assessments of this sort beyond the usual nod to great crises surmounted in the past a…
The Policy State: An American Predicament
Relic: How Our Constitution Undermines Effective Government and Why We Need a More Powerful Presidency . By William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe. New York: Basic Books, 2016
Rethinking Presidential Studies through Historical Research: Introduction
Have We Abandoned a “Constitutional Perspective” on American Political Development
Defining terms is a serious undertaking and one bound to stir controversy. When we decided to devote a book to this task, we were under no illusion that everyone would readily sign on to our proposal. We thought, however, that it was worth calling attention to certain conceptual problems that currently beset the study of American political development (APD). We wanted to underscore the value of tractability in claims about change over time and to…
Mission Accomplished
Notwithstanding Terry Moe's claim, rational choice scholarship has been pursuing the least “revolutionary” of the possible lines of advance in presidential studies. This scholarship asks the same basic question that Richard Neustadt asked nearly a half century ago: how much can a president get done? It follows Neustadt as well in its strategic approach to presidential action and in thinking about the problem of presidential strategy systemically.…
The Reassociation of Ideas and Purposes: Racism, Liberalism, and the American Political Tradition
Racist and liberal ideals are said to anchor competing political traditions in America, but a juxtaposition of ideals obscures key processes of change in the cultural lexicon and misses much about how a political tradition comes to bear on the development of a polity. Attention to the reassociation of ideas and purposes over time points to a more intimate relationship between racism and liberalism in American political culture, to the conceptual …
Leadership by Definition: First Term Reflections on George W. Bush's Political Stance
George W. Bush elevated the value of definition in presidential leadership and made it central to his political stance. This was as much a strategic calculation of political advantage in the moment at hand as it was a reflection of the man's innate character. Accounting for Bush's leadership posture in this way helps to situate it on a larger historical canvas as a particular rendition of a familiar type; reference to general characteristics of t…
The Search for American Political Development
In recent years, American political development has claimed the attention of a growing band of political scientists, and scholars have begun to speak of 'APD' as a subfield within the discipline. This book provides a justification for studying politics historically, not only for what it reveals about the roots of political affairs at the present time but what it teaches about politics as an ongoing activity in time, anytime. Placing the character…
What's Wrong With APD
In his methodological critique of APD research, John Gerring steers clear of the issues that have bogged down debates about methodology in recent years. He does not argue that historically-oriented students of American politics should adopt some allegedly superior method current in other sectors of political science, nor does he demand clarification of an alternative method that might be more pertinent given some allegedly distinctive qualities o…
Unfinished Business
Before Julian Zelizer called with the idea for this forum, I had marked the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Building a New American State as just one more entry on a growing list of reminders of the swift passage of time. Now, as I read the reflections of scholars who have risen to prominence during this period in political science, sociology, and history, the fullness of these years is readily apparent. Building a New American State …
Presidency and American Political Development: A Third Look
Presidency and American Political Development: A Third Look
Over the course of the past century, the presidency was construed first as the solution to theprob‐kms of governing in America, and then as the source of America's governing problems. In its time, each of these constructions elaborated a history of the office andanchoredan agenda for presidential studies. It would seem, however, that political experience, if not the mere passage of time, has robbed both constructions of much of their bite, and th…
Henry Jones Ford on the Development of American Institutions
American political scientists in the 1890s were deeply divided on the central question they had chosen to address: Where to place government in the United States in the larger scheme of Western political development. The “idealists,” led by John Burgess of Columbia University, argued that the American Constitution had “perfected the Aryan genius for political civilization” by “emancipating it from the remaining prejudices of European Teutonism.” …
Theory and History, Structure and Agency
Exposing and explaining patterns in presidential history will indicate that outcomes are not entirely open‐ended, but it is a long way from there to a claim that everything of significance is determined. It is arguable that studies of presidential leadership have been far more attentive to contingencies than to regularities and that there is more to be gained at present from closer attention to those features of our politics that structure the la…
Regimes and Regime Building in American Government: A Review of Literature on the 1940s
Journal Article Regimes and Regime Building in American Government: A Review of Literature on the 1940s Get access Karen Orren, Karen Orren KAREN ORREN is professor of political science at the University of California at Los Angeles. STEPHEN SKOWRONEK is professor of political science at Yale University. They are currently collaborating on a book about the study of American political development. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford A…
Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton, Revised Edition
Professor Neely Goes Fishing
As “Lincoln and the Politics of Union” is the only thing that Michael Holt has ever written with which Mark Neely entirely disagrees, I can understand his impatience with the arguments of The Politics Presidents Make . Each of us has a fish of this sort waiting to be fried, and the opportunity afforded by my reference to Holt's essay must have been hard to resist. At least Neely took enough care in seizing this opportunity to acknowledge his “red…
The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush
Journal Article The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush. By Stephen Skowronek. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. xii, 526 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-674-68935-6.) Get access Gil Troy Gil Troy McGill University, Montreal, Canada Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 83, Issue 3, December 1996, Pages 1003–1004, https://doi.org/10.2307/2945678 Pu…
Woodrow Wilson's Critique of Popular Leadership: Reassessing the Modern-Traditional Divide in Presidential History
Long a favorite of political scientists who worried about the limitations of the Constitution and looked to the presidency to meet the governing challenges of the twentieth century, Woodrow Wilson has more recently been taken to task for rejecting the wisdom of the founders and fostering developments productive of a systemic crisis of national authority. Curiously, this critique proceeds on a view of Wilson's historical significance that is not a…
The risks of "third-way" politics
Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics
Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton, Revised Edition
The Reassociation of Ideas and Purposes: Racism, Liberalism, and the American Political Tradition
Racist and liberal ideals are said to anchor competing political traditions in America, but a juxtaposition of ideals obscures key processes of change in the cultural lexicon and misses much about how a political tradition comes to bear on the development of a polity. Attention to the reassociation of ideas and purposes over time points to a more intimate relationship between racism and liberalism in American political culture, to the conceptual …
Order and Change
Leadership by Definition: First Term Reflections on George W. Bush's Political Stance
George W. Bush elevated the value of definition in presidential leadership and made it central to his political stance. This was as much a strategic calculation of political advantage in the moment at hand as it was a reflection of the man's innate character. Accounting for Bush's leadership posture in this way helps to situate it on a larger historical canvas as a particular rendition of a familiar type; reference to general characteristics of t…
Woodrow Wilson's Critique of Popular Leadership: Reassessing the Modern-Traditional Divide in Presidential History
Long a favorite of political scientists who worried about the limitations of the Constitution and looked to the presidency to meet the governing challenges of the twentieth century, Woodrow Wilson has more recently been taken to task for rejecting the wisdom of the founders and fostering developments productive of a systemic crisis of national authority. Curiously, this critique proceeds on a view of Wilson's historical significance that is not a…
Notes on the Presidency in the Political Order
The American presidency reflects nothing so clearly as the idiosyncrasies of personality and circumstance. The discrete dynamics of the men and their times are naturally pronounced; the general dynamics that define the institution in time, correspondingly obscured. This makes thematic analysis of the presidency peculiarly dependent on uncovering broad-ranging patterns in institutional history. By isolating different historical regularities we can…
The Adaptability Paradox: Constitutional Resilience and Principles of Good Government in Twenty-First-Century America
Faith in the resilience of the US Constitution prompts many observers to discount evidence of a deepening crisis of governance in our day. A long history of success in navigating tough times and adapting to new circumstances instills confidence that the fundamentals of the system are sound and the institutions self-correcting. The aim of this article is to push assessments of this sort beyond the usual nod to great crises surmounted in the past a…
Editors' Preface
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
What's Wrong With APD
In his methodological critique of APD research, John Gerring steers clear of the issues that have bogged down debates about methodology in recent years. He does not argue that historically-oriented students of American politics should adopt some allegedly superior method current in other sectors of political science, nor does he demand clarification of an alternative method that might be more pertinent given some allegedly distinctive qualities o…
The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush
Journal Article The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush. By Stephen Skowronek. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. xii, 526 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-674-68935-6.) Get access Gil Troy Gil Troy McGill University, Montreal, Canada Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 83, Issue 3, December 1996, Pages 1003–1004, https://doi.org/10.2307/2945678 Pu…
Milkis, Arnold, and Young: Response
Franklin Roosevelt and the Modern Presidency
The political foundations of the modern presidency were laid during the New Deal years. Franklin Roosevelt was the New Deal president. The relationship between these two facts is a matter of some consequence. On it hinges our understanding of presidential leadership and modern American government generally, not to mention the political significance of Roosevelt himself
(Jerry-) Building a New American State
Relic: How Our Constitution Undermines Effective Government and Why We Need a More Powerful Presidency . By William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe. New York: Basic Books, 2016
Have We Abandoned a “Constitutional Perspective” on American Political Development
Defining terms is a serious undertaking and one bound to stir controversy. When we decided to devote a book to this task, we were under no illusion that everyone would readily sign on to our proposal. We thought, however, that it was worth calling attention to certain conceptual problems that currently beset the study of American political development (APD). We wanted to underscore the value of tractability in claims about change over time and to…
Presidency and American Political Development: A Third Look
Presidency and American Political Development: A Third Look
Over the course of the past century, the presidency was construed first as the solution to theprob‐kms of governing in America, and then as the source of America's governing problems. In its time, each of these constructions elaborated a history of the office andanchoredan agenda for presidential studies. It would seem, however, that political experience, if not the mere passage of time, has robbed both constructions of much of their bite, and th…
Do Presidents Make Politics
Stephen Skowronek's first book, Building A New American State was triumphantly successful, one of the most cited books in political science published in the 1980s. Skowronek's success was all the more impressive as the bulk of his first book was devoted to an examination of civil service reform proposals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a topic that rarely sets the blood racing and more generally reminds one of Miss Prism's unnece…
National Railroad Regulation and the Problem of State-Building: Interests and Institutions in Late Nineteenth-Century America
Mission Accomplished
Notwithstanding Terry Moe's claim, rational choice scholarship has been pursuing the least “revolutionary” of the possible lines of advance in presidential studies. This scholarship asks the same basic question that Richard Neustadt asked nearly a half century ago: how much can a president get done? It follows Neustadt as well in its strategic approach to presidential action and in thinking about the problem of presidential strategy systemically.…
Theory and History, Structure and Agency
Exposing and explaining patterns in presidential history will indicate that outcomes are not entirely open‐ended, but it is a long way from there to a claim that everything of significance is determined. It is arguable that studies of presidential leadership have been far more attentive to contingencies than to regularities and that there is more to be gained at present from closer attention to those features of our politics that structure the la…
Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920
This book is about governmental change in America. It examines the reconstruction of institutional power relationships that had to be negotiated among the courts, the parties, the president, the Congress and the states in order to accommodate the expansion of national administrative capacities around the turn of the twentieth century. Stephen Skowronek argues that new institutional forms and procedures do not arise reflexively or automatically in…
National Railroad Regulation and the Problem of State-Building: Interests and Institutions in Late Nineteenth-Century America
Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920
This book is about governmental change in America. It examines the reconstruction of institutional power relationships that had to be negotiated among the courts, the parties, the president, the Congress and the states in order to accommodate the expansion of national administrative capacities around the turn of the twentieth century. Stephen Skowronek argues that new institutional forms and procedures do not arise reflexively or automatically in…
(Jerry-) Building a New American State
Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics
Notes on the Presidency in the Political Order
The American presidency reflects nothing so clearly as the idiosyncrasies of personality and circumstance. The discrete dynamics of the men and their times are naturally pronounced; the general dynamics that define the institution in time, correspondingly obscured. This makes thematic analysis of the presidency peculiarly dependent on uncovering broad-ranging patterns in institutional history. By isolating different historical regularities we can…
Editors' Preface
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Franklin Roosevelt and the Modern Presidency
The political foundations of the modern presidency were laid during the New Deal years. Franklin Roosevelt was the New Deal president. The relationship between these two facts is a matter of some consequence. On it hinges our understanding of presidential leadership and modern American government generally, not to mention the political significance of Roosevelt himself
Do Presidents Make Politics
Stephen Skowronek's first book, Building A New American State was triumphantly successful, one of the most cited books in political science published in the 1980s. Skowronek's success was all the more impressive as the bulk of his first book was devoted to an examination of civil service reform proposals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a topic that rarely sets the blood racing and more generally reminds one of Miss Prism's unnece…
Milkis, Arnold, and Young: Response
Order and Change
The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush
Professor Neely Goes Fishing
As “Lincoln and the Politics of Union” is the only thing that Michael Holt has ever written with which Mark Neely entirely disagrees, I can understand his impatience with the arguments of The Politics Presidents Make . Each of us has a fish of this sort waiting to be fried, and the opportunity afforded by my reference to Holt's essay must have been hard to resist. At least Neely took enough care in seizing this opportunity to acknowledge his “red…
The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush
Journal Article The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush. By Stephen Skowronek. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. xii, 526 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-674-68935-6.) Get access Gil Troy Gil Troy McGill University, Montreal, Canada Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 83, Issue 3, December 1996, Pages 1003–1004, https://doi.org/10.2307/2945678 Pu…
Woodrow Wilson's Critique of Popular Leadership: Reassessing the Modern-Traditional Divide in Presidential History
Long a favorite of political scientists who worried about the limitations of the Constitution and looked to the presidency to meet the governing challenges of the twentieth century, Woodrow Wilson has more recently been taken to task for rejecting the wisdom of the founders and fostering developments productive of a systemic crisis of national authority. Curiously, this critique proceeds on a view of Wilson's historical significance that is not a…
The risks of "third-way" politics
Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton, Revised Edition
Regimes and Regime Building in American Government: A Review of Literature on the 1940s
Journal Article Regimes and Regime Building in American Government: A Review of Literature on the 1940s Get access Karen Orren, Karen Orren KAREN ORREN is professor of political science at the University of California at Los Angeles. STEPHEN SKOWRONEK is professor of political science at Yale University. They are currently collaborating on a book about the study of American political development. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford A…
Henry Jones Ford on the Development of American Institutions
American political scientists in the 1890s were deeply divided on the central question they had chosen to address: Where to place government in the United States in the larger scheme of Western political development. The “idealists,” led by John Burgess of Columbia University, argued that the American Constitution had “perfected the Aryan genius for political civilization” by “emancipating it from the remaining prejudices of European Teutonism.” …
Theory and History, Structure and Agency
Exposing and explaining patterns in presidential history will indicate that outcomes are not entirely open‐ended, but it is a long way from there to a claim that everything of significance is determined. It is arguable that studies of presidential leadership have been far more attentive to contingencies than to regularities and that there is more to be gained at present from closer attention to those features of our politics that structure the la…
Presidency and American Political Development: A Third Look
Presidency and American Political Development: A Third Look
Over the course of the past century, the presidency was construed first as the solution to theprob‐kms of governing in America, and then as the source of America's governing problems. In its time, each of these constructions elaborated a history of the office andanchoredan agenda for presidential studies. It would seem, however, that political experience, if not the mere passage of time, has robbed both constructions of much of their bite, and th…
What's Wrong With APD
In his methodological critique of APD research, John Gerring steers clear of the issues that have bogged down debates about methodology in recent years. He does not argue that historically-oriented students of American politics should adopt some allegedly superior method current in other sectors of political science, nor does he demand clarification of an alternative method that might be more pertinent given some allegedly distinctive qualities o…
Unfinished Business
Before Julian Zelizer called with the idea for this forum, I had marked the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Building a New American State as just one more entry on a growing list of reminders of the swift passage of time. Now, as I read the reflections of scholars who have risen to prominence during this period in political science, sociology, and history, the fullness of these years is readily apparent. Building a New American State …
The Search for American Political Development
In recent years, American political development has claimed the attention of a growing band of political scientists, and scholars have begun to speak of 'APD' as a subfield within the discipline. This book provides a justification for studying politics historically, not only for what it reveals about the roots of political affairs at the present time but what it teaches about politics as an ongoing activity in time, anytime. Placing the character…
Leadership by Definition: First Term Reflections on George W. Bush's Political Stance
George W. Bush elevated the value of definition in presidential leadership and made it central to his political stance. This was as much a strategic calculation of political advantage in the moment at hand as it was a reflection of the man's innate character. Accounting for Bush's leadership posture in this way helps to situate it on a larger historical canvas as a particular rendition of a familiar type; reference to general characteristics of t…
Political science (32 works) · Law (28 works) · Politics (27 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Law (22 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (20 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Political economy (10 works)