A Juggler’s Choice: A Study of Presidential Trade-Offs

• In Event: Poster Session: European Politics and Society & Presidents and Executive Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Presidents and Executive Politics

Abstract

Presidents have many different demands on their time and attention for policy. These demands require that they make trade-offs, prioritizing some issues over other. What factors influence a president’s choice of policy areas? I argue that presidential preferences play a significant role in determining a president’s priorities, but that effect is muted over time, as exigent circumstances and policy successes or failures come in to play. Using a dataset of over 27,000 decisions from 1981 to 2016, this paper will examine how different forces can play a significant role in determining the trade-offs that presidents make between different policy areas.

Author

• Rebecca Eissler, San Francisco State University