Does character trump institutions? : uncovering the success factors behind presidential policy-making in the Reagan and Trump administration

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DOES CHARACTER

TRUMP

INSTITUTIONS?

U N C O V E R I N G T H E S U C C E S S F A C T O R S B E H I N D P R E S I D E N T I A L P O L I C Y - M A K I N G I N T H E R E A G A N A N D T R U M P A D M I N I S T R A T I O N MAAIKE VAN LYNDEN

11790644

SUPERVISOR: SEBASTIAN KRAPOHL

22 JUNE 2018 17.730 WORDS

SECOND READER: JASPER BLOM

MASTER THESIS POLITICAL SCIENCE - IR

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3.2.1 Barber’s categorization of presidents 14 3.2.2 Reagan as a passive-positive president 15 3.2.3 Trump as an active-negative president 16 3.2.4 Theoretical comparison between the two presidential characters 19 3.2.5 Theory on the effect of prior experience on performance 20 3.3 Theoretical comparison between the two approaches 24

Hypotheses 26

Methods 27

Availability of Data 29

Empirical Analysis 30

7.1 State of affairs during Reagan’s and Trump’s first year 30 7.2 The political agenda of Reagan and Trump 31 7.3 Presidential policy-making during Trump’s first year 32

7.3.1 The travel ban 32

7.3.2 Obamacare 36

7.3.3 Trump’s tax cut 38

7.4 Presidential policy-making during Reagan’s first year 40

7.4.1 Reagan’s tax cut 40

7.4.2 The social security cuts 42

7.5 Comparative analysis of presidential policy-making during Trump and Reagan’s first year 45

Conclusion 48

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Introduction

“Let's Make America Great Again”: a quote central not only to the campaign of the current 45th president of the United States (US), yet also voiced by his predecessor Ronald Reagan (Tumulty 2017). Despite the different associations Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan might bring to mind, the former being infamous for holding the lowest popularity rating ever in his first year in office and the latter being considered one of the most successful presidents of all time, the two presidents share common ground on more than merely this campaign slogan (Associated Press in Washington 2018; Gillett 2018). Both Republican presidents entered politics after a career in the entertainment industry and subsequently campaigned for the presidency on a predominantly populist platform (Buchanan 2017; Drezner 2018). Thereafter, Reagan and Trump both experienced a first year of presidency in which they were heavily criticized, being reflected in popular media accounts, stating for instance that “Mr. Reagan is really too amiable, too old and too careful to mount a counterrevolution against 50 years of the New Deal” and that “Mr Trump is a deeply flawed man without the judgment or

temperament to lead a great country” (Reston 1982; The Economist 2018). Their turbulent first year can also be seen reflected in their similarly low and sinking popularity rates,

accounting to a 10 and 19 percent drop for Trump and Reagan respectively by the end of their first year, and in their policy-making efforts, reflected by the amount of legislation that was, at times even repeatedly, blocked in their first year (Collinson et al. 2018; Reston 1982; Wilson 2018). On the other hand, however, both presidents also passed crucial policies from their agenda. President Trump even stated to “have signed more legislation than anybody” and thereby to have broken the record of Harry Truman (BBC News, “State of the Union” 2018). Moreover, similar to Reagan, who in his first year persuaded Congress to “make the largest tax reductions in modern history”, Trump did manage to pass “the biggest overhaul of US taxes in three decades” (BBC News, “State of the Union” 2018; Reston 1982).

This thus gives one a mixed impression of the first years of both Reagan and Trump and makes one wonder, taking into account the fact that Reagan is now considered by historians to be among the top ten best presidents of all time, how the Trump presidency

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might continue (Gillett 2018). In order to present a sound insight on this issue, one first ought

to research the following question: _{what is driving the success of presidential}

policy-making_{? Success in this instance refers to the president getting his agenda, articulated}

in proposed policies, passed. My research will seek to answer exactly that question by researching two strands of theory proposing success factors of presidential policy-making: the institutionalist approach, arguing for external, institutionalist factors driving presidential policy-making success, and the psychological approach, which argues that internal, personal factors such as experience and character influence the policy process. The two sets of factors, external and internal, will serve as independent variables to be tested on their effect on the dependent variable of the success or failure of presidential policy-making. These variables

will be tested on the case studies of the first year of bothpresident Reagan and president

Trump in order to make a case by analogy on the decisive factors influencing the success or failure of presidential policy-making. This research does not mean to disprove either personal or institutional factors as factors contributing to presidential policy success or failure. Rather, it aims to study which of these aspects prevailed in the cases of the Reagan and the Trump presidency.

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Relevance

The relevance of researching the factors influencing the success of presidential policy-making is twofold. On the academic level, testing the two scopes of theories on the case studies to determine which approach holds better for the American presidency contributes to the scope of research on presidential policy-making as it might show the clear prevalence of one line of theory over the other in the American case. As will be presented in the literature review, this line of research is currently lacking from the academic base. Testing these theories against each other has significant implications: if for instance the psychological approach proves to hold more truth, the implication of this conclusion will be that these cases prove that

presidential personalities do hold a certain predominance over the system. This research might hence contribute significantly to the classic president-centered versus

presidency-centered debate, questioning whether the system provides stable continuance over various presidencies or whether the personality of a president might cause variation over the years (Hager and Sullivan 1994, 1080). In other words, this research might be able to provide an answer to the question Hager and Sullivan pose in their research: "Should we focus

attention on the characteristics of individual presidents or groups of presidents? Or should we concentrate on institutional constraints to the decision-making process?" (Hager and Sullivan

1994, 1080).

Contributing to this debate does not only prove the academic relevance, yet also the relevance on a societal level. Namely, if the renewed manner of application of the diverging theories on the case studies proves to support one of either sides of the debate, this shapes a certain prediction for the subsequent years of the Trump presidency as well. It is no secret that the Trump presidency, even before its start, has been heavily criticized. Hence, this research will hereby seek to put this conversation into an academic perspective based on well-grounded theory and research in order to establish a sound conclusion. It does therefore

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not necessarily aim to dispute the criticism displayed in the media, yet to test to what extent policy successes and failures can be attributed to the person of Donald Trump and what the consequences of this are. After all, if presidential policy success is determined by a

president’s character, this would suggest that it is not simple to change the road of success or failure one is on.

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Literature Review

In their book _{Presidential Leadership: Politics and Policy Making}

, presidential scholars

Edwards III and Wayne juxtapose the diverging range of perspectives from which scholars have researched the presidency. Their categorization of studies, outlining a legal,

institutional, power and psychological approach to studying the presidency, can also be applied to the specific field of policy-making, in which we see similar dividing lines between theories (Edwards III and Wayne 2014, 17). The two scopes of theory arguably most

contradictoryand most relevant in the field of policy-making are the institutionalist and the

psychological approach.

The first is grounded upon institutionalist theory, with scholars of this school of thought arguing that institutional constraints are the main factors influencing the outcome of presidential policy-making. In the American case, these institutional constraints are for instance portrayed to be Congress or the Supreme Court of the United States (Brouard and Hönnige 2017, 3; Tsebelis 1995, 323-324). One of the most predominant examples of such theory is for instance the veto player theory by George Tsebelis, which claims that there are institutional veto players in a federal system as the United States that can influence the policy-making process substantially by choosing to either block the process or not (Tsebelis 1995, 289).

However, the psychological scope of research on the presidency and his

policy-making paints a considerably different image of the process. Scholars within this theoretical scope argue that a president’s personal biography is driving the outcome of his performance. One of the most influential theories in this area is the theory of presidential character by the late James Barber. Barber argues that presidential character should be taken into account when looking at presidential performance, as he claims it is essential to

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Furthermore, psychological analysis of the presidency goes beyond merely studying character. Simonton, for instance, argues to be able to predict the performances of presidents by means of, amongst others, their years in office, war years and intellectual brilliance (Simonton 2001, 293). Along the same line of reasoning, Simon and Uscinski also argue that

“prior experience predicts presidential performance” (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 514).

As one can conclude from this brief overview of the academic literature on factors influencing policy-making processes, each scope of theory, be it institutionalist or

psychological, “concentrates on certain variables at the expense of others” (Edwards III and Wayne 2014, 17). Subsequently, these variables are often exposed to criticism from other scholars. What is lacking in scholarly literature, however, is an account in which these variables are directly juxtaposed and empirically tested on actual case studies in order to determine which theory holds more truth in particular circumstances. The American

policy-making process and factors contributing to its success have been researched, however these accounts remain colored by one specific school of thought.

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Theoretical Framework

3.1 Institutionalist approach

3.1.1 Veto player theory

This research intends to close the clear gap in the academic literature by not limiting its focus to one theory, but studying the two predominant theoretical approaches providing explanatory accounts for the success or failure of presidential policy-making. These approaches are, as mentioned previously, the institutionalist and the psychological approach. These approaches will be tested on case studies of president Reagan and president Trump by studying the general circumstances during their presidency and specific policies that the presidents were either successful or unsuccessful in passing. In order to do so, however, one first needs to establish a well-grounded understanding of the theories at hand.

Within the scope of institutionalist theory, this research will draw upon the veto player theory of George Tsebelis, which was already shortly touched upon previously. As Tsebelis argues, “institutions matter” (Tsebelis 1995, 289). Following this belief, he

introduced the scholarly world to his veto player theory in his 1995 article _{Decision Making}

in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism

. In this comparative analysis of the influence of veto players on political

stability in different political systems, Tsebelis argues that in a presidential regime, policy-making depends on the winset of every institutional actor involved in the

decision-making process who has the ability to block a change in the status quo, i.e. every veto player (Tsebelis 2000, 441). Tsebelis offered this new game theoretic approach in order to “put an end to the proliferation of parallel debates that occurs when political scientists

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compare political systems along a single dimension” (Tsebelis 2000, 441). By doing so, he introduced a framework that can “identify veto players in different political systems and generate expectations concerning any particular combination of institutional characteristics”, including the United States’ bicameral two-party presidentialism (Tsebelis 2000, 442). This theoretical framework was later elaborated on and contributed to by not only Tsebelis himself, but also other institutionalists such as Manabu Saeki and Sylvain Brouard and Christoph Hönnige (Brouard and Hönnige 2017; Saeki 2009). For this research studying the effect of institutional factors on the success of presidential policy-making, it is of vital importance to elaborate on the theory of the veto player framework more thoroughly.

In order to do so, one first has to clarify the term “veto player”, as it was coined by Tsebelis in his 1995 article (Tsebelis 1995, 293). In the article in question, Tsebelis defines a veto player to be “an individual or collective actor whose agreement is required for a policy decision” (Tsebelis 1995, 293). Its historical background is said to be rooted in the system of ‘checks and balances’, which was introduced in the American Constitution as well as in “classic constitutional texts of the eighteenth century” (Tsebelis 1995, 301). This system divides government in the executive, legislative and judicial power, each of which can respond to the actions of the other branches to ensure that no group or individual in government will hold too much power (USA.gov n.d., “Branches”).

Tsebelis categorizes these veto players into two possible groups: institutional veto players, who are specified by the Constitution, and partisan veto players, who are generally players that are a member of a government coalition and defined along partisan lines (Tsebelis 1995, 302). Following the logic of the ‘checks and balances’ system, examples of veto players are for instance the upper and lower chambers in a bicameral system (Tsebelis 1995, 302). In several presidential regimes, furthermore, the president also holds veto powers (Tsebelis 1995, 305). According to Tsebelis, however, the number of veto players does not only differ per political system, yet also per issue (Tsebelis 1995, 307). For certain issues, such as the adjustment of interest rates, political actors may delegate decision-making to a specialized, independent authority (Tsebelis 1995, 308).

One might wonder in what manner exactly these veto players influence the political game. Taking into account the different configurations of veto players, the task of veto player theory is to show “how easy it is to change the status quo under different institutional

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the theory studies veto players as his independent variable in relation to political stability as his dependent variable. To be able to measure the latter, Tsebelis uses the size of the winset of the status quo as a proxy for political stability. He defines this winset as the area between the various positions of veto players that is “composed of all points that can defeat the status quo” (Tsebelis 1995, 295). In other words, the winset is the theoretical area in which the preferences of veto players are aligned in such manner that none of the veto players involved will use their veto power. According to Tsebelis, the size of the winset is paramount: after all, the bigger the winset is, the more susceptible to change is the status quo. Although a small winset would preclude major policy changes, the chances of a veto being applied in such a case are enormous (Tsebelis 1995, 295). The area of the winset, Tsebelis concludes from his research, is determined by three variables: the number of veto players, their incongruence and the internal cohesion within each veto player.

The first of these three variables is “simple”: when the amount of veto players

increases, policy stability increases and vice versa (Tsebelis 2000, 446). An increased amount of veto players namely indicates that there is a greater number of players with potentially diverging standpoints required to come to an agreement on a given issue. As a result, the winset becomes smaller and the chance of a movement of the status quo decreases. Hereby, an increasing number of veto players has a significant effect on the winset, possibly even making it “empty” (Tsebelis 1995, 297; Tsebelis 2000, 447).

Secondly, Tsebelis argues that the congruence of veto players, which he defines as “the distance between veto players”, has a significant effect on political stability (Tsebelis 1995, 308). For instance, the political orientation of a country’s chambers and president can be altered from one election to the next. As a result, two veto players may at one point have considerably diverging political compositions and afterwards see their distance rapidly decreased. If the composition of the two veto players results to be identical, the absorption rule dictates that the two should then be counted as one veto player (Tsebelis 1995, 301). Consequently, political stability is likely to decrease since the number of veto players has decreased as well. On the other hand, if incongruence among the veto players increases, the minimal room for agreement causes the winset to decrease and therefore political stability to increase.

Thirdly, internal cohesion of veto players is crucial in determining whether there is a chance for changing the status quo or not. Between the various political systems, one has to

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note the difference between individual and collective veto players. While an individual veto player, being an individual person, logically takes on one cohesive position, collective veto players are collections of individuals that often hold different positions (Tsebelis 1995, 289). At times, however, collective veto players can reach cohesion to the point that they can be assimilated to individual veto players (Tsebelis 1995, 301). As a result of the cohesion of the collective actor, agreement among veto players can then more easily be reached and the status quo will prove more susceptible to change. In other words, as Tsebelis claims, political stability decreases when the cohesion within veto players increases. This cohesion is

dependent on various factors. For instance, cohesion is “likely to increase with the number of distinct individuals comprising a veto player” (Tsebelis 1995, 312). In other words, the more members a veto player includes, the more cohesive the veto player will be. Another factor that might influence the cohesion of a veto player is the electoral system. Tsebelis refers to Cain et al. and to Shugart and Carey, who have argued that “single-member plurality districts promote the personal vote” and “proportional representation promotes strong parties”

respectively (Tsebelis 1995, 312). Tsebelis furthermore argues that internal cohesion might be affected by, not surprising for an institutionalist theory, the institutional structure. For instance, he claims, presidential regimes “promote a lack of cohesion because the president constantly tries to exploit differences among MPs to build coalitions to promote his

programmes” (Tsebelis 1995, 313).

All in all, the three variables concerning veto player configurations, being the number of veto players, their congruence and their coherence, prove of vital importance to show how veto players affect political stability. Because, as Tsebelis states: “systems with multiple incongruent and cohesive veto players will present higher levels of stability in policy making than systems with one veto player or a small number of incohesive and congruent veto players” (Tsebelis 1995, 317).

Another article that builds on Tsebelis’ theory is _{Gridlock in the Government of the}

United States: Influence of Divided Government and Veto Players

by Manabu Saeki. Again,

the author stresses the influence of institutionalist actors in the policy-making process (Saeki 2009, 587). Saeki’s article is focused on the influence of the area of the winset, which he defines as “an intersection overlapped by the veto players’ indifference curves” (Saeki 2009, 587). He states that from his research, it can be observed that “divided government and the area of the winset” have a substantial effect on presidential legislative proposals, hence again

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reason to look at the preferences of the various veto players in the United States as well as to research the effects of the division of government during the Reagan and Trump

administrations (Saeki 2009, 603).

3.1.2 Veto players in the United States

Veto player theory can prove of use when analyzing the policy successes and failures of former president Reagan and current president Trump. In order to successfully test the theory, it is of great significance to first determine the veto players in the United States. As

previously mentioned, the notion of veto players stems from the American Constitution and is therefore highly relevant in the case of the United States itself. The system of checks and balances is designed in such manner that the president has the right to veto bills passed by Congress and Congress again has the right to reject the president’s nominees for heads of federal agencies and to remove the president from office. Moreover, the Supreme Court balances the power of the other branches by being able to overturn unconstitutional laws. They are in turn kept in check by the other branches, as Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate (USA.gov n.d.. “Branches”).

Taking into account that a veto player is defined as “an individual or collective actor whose agreement is required for a policy decision”, following veto player theory, the Senate,

the House of Representatives and the presidentwould immediately come to mind in the case

of the United States (Tsebelis 1995, 293). Various scholars adopt this assumption in their research, Tsebelis included. He bases this count of three veto players on the United States Constitution, stating that the Constitution states “that there are three veto players”, since it “specifies that an agreement of the House, the Senate, and the President (veto override excluded) is required for enactment of legislation” (Tsebelis 2011, 78). It is important to note that although the House of Representatives and the Senate can be collectively considered as Congress, both legislative chambers are considered to serve as two separate veto players as the majorities in both chambers are not identical (Tsebelis 1995, 310).

An additional note that should be made for the American system is that the

arrangement of veto players slightly changes in the case of a filibuster. In the Senate, a single politician has the power to filibuster, which means to attempt to “block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter by debating it at length, by offering numerous procedural motions, or

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by any other delaying or obstructive actions” (US Senate, "Filibuster" n.d.). In order to be able to halt a filibuster, a ⅗ vote of the Senate is required. Since the Senate contains 100

senators, a minority of fortysenators can therefore block a legislative vote in case of a

filibuster (Tsebelis 2000, 451; US Senate, "Senators" n.d.). As since 1979 minority parties have always controlled forty seats or more in the Senate, bills passing the Senate therefore require “some level of bipartisan support” (Tsebelis 2000, 451). One can hence argue that in the case of a filibuster, the Senator starting the filibuster and the minority party can be

considered partisan veto players. Without a filibuster, on the contrary, both the Senate and the House generally vote on the basis of simple majority and therefore simply act as a collective veto player. Thus, one can conclude that, according to veto player theory, the type of decision rule within a collective veto player can be critical to the fate of a bill passing the

congressional floors (Hallerberg 2010, 24).

Besides this exception, general accounts on veto player theory in the United States consider the three veto players to be the president, the Senate and the House of

Representatives. One can argue, however, that this count excludes an additional institutional veto player that has proved highly influential over the course of history: the courts. As the Supreme Courts and the lower federal courts can “nullify acts of parliament and thus prevent or reverse a change in the status quo”, one can plead that they should be considered veto players as well (Brouard and Hönnige 2017, 529). Tsebelis admits to this exclusion, announcing that in his comparative research he will limit his focus to institutional and partisan veto players and ignore less frequent veto players. He states, however, that “case

studies must identify _all

the relevant veto players” (Tsebelis 1995, 308). In this research,

conducting a comparative analogy on the basis of case studies, federal courts will therefore be included in the count of relevant veto players.

The question then appears how and when these courts would serve as veto players in practice. Tsebelis himself has argued that in many cases, constitutional courts are absorbed as veto players since they are appointed by other veto players. However, as Brouard and

Hönnige add to his theory, there are situations in which this does not hold. In their comparative analysis of courts in the US, France and Germany, they argue that three

variables determine when courts act as veto players: the ideological composition of the court, the pattern of government control and the legislative procedures. The first variable is

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players or not. In the case of the US, this variable is constant as all federal judges are

appointed by the president and approved by the Senate, two veto players, at all time. Hence, the court’s ideological composition will not change. In this case the second and third variable are therefore of greater importance to study, as they can fluctuate. The second variable entails that because governments change faster than judges, “the government might well switch its position while the court does not”, resulting in the court becoming a veto player (Brouard and Hönnige 2017, 534). For example, a Republican president will most probably appoint a Republican judge, thus the court will be absorbed by the president as a veto player. However, that president might thereafter be replaced by a Democratic president, recovering the court as a veto player as their position is now not in line with the president anymore. The third

variable entails that constitutional courts are not absorbed at times because of the legislative procedures in a country. For instance, in the United States, this would be the case for a constitutional amendment (Brouard and Hönnige 2017, 535). Predominantly the second of these variables is of great significance when studying the basis of the behavior of veto players in the case of Reagan and Trump. It is important to note that when the courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, do move to use their veto power, they represent one of the strongest institutions in the system. Namely, they have the last say in the legislative process and can thereby block bills approved by Congress and the president while no one can veto their decision (USA.gov n.d., “How Laws Are Made”).

3.1.3 Institutionalist variables

All in all, institutionalists such as Tsebelis argue that policy stability, and therefore also policy change, is determined by institutional factors, namely the configuration of veto players. In the case of the United States, one can identify four possible veto players using veto player theory: the president, the Senate, the House of Representatives and the courts. According to Tsebelis, an actual veto by these players is likely when there is a high number of veto players, high incongruence and high cohesion. The number of veto players is determined by whether the courts serve as conditional veto players in the particular case, depending on Brouard and Hönnige’s variables provided above, and on whether the two separate legislative chambers can absorb each other. Tsebelis’ three independent variables

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and these underlying variables influencing them will serve to test whether in the case of Reagan and Trump, veto players were the deciding factor in their policy-making success.

3.2 Psychological approach

3.2.1 Barber’s categorization of presidents

The institutionalist approach that Tsebelis and his colleagues offer, has received considerable supportive attention from various political science scholars (Andrews and Montinola 2004; Ganghof 2003; König et al. 2010). As for instance Hallerberg comments on veto player theory: “It is a good theory according to the standards of political science. It is parsimonious, it is testable, and … it travels well” (Hallerberg 2010, 21). Hallerberg even continues to say that since Tsebelis’ 1995 article, the term veto player “has come into vogue” (Hallerberg 2010, 22). On the other side of the academic spectrum, however, exists an approach that has received considerably less attention. As previously mentioned, the psychological approach bases itself not on institutional factors to explain presidential policy-making, yet claims that personal aspects, such as experience and character, are driving policy success or failure.

One of the most influential scholars in this field is the aforementioned late James David Barber, who was a political scientist at Duke University and an “authority on the American presidential character” (Fox 2004). His theory on the psychological makeup of

presidents published in his book _{The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the}

White House

predicted the downfall of president Richard Nixon “several years before the

fact” (Fox 2004). In this book, Barber presents his theory that the character of a president is highly influential in determining the direction of national politics, providing a typological categorization of presidents by character (Barber 2009, 9-10). His analysis follows two axes of observable behavioral dimensions: activity and affect. In the book, the former is defined as “the level of energy that a president devotes to the job”, while the latter represents “the level of satisfaction the president obtains from it” (Barber 2009, iv). The activity axis, according to Barber, reaches from active to inactive, while the affect axis runs from positive to negative. As a result, Barber reaches four categorizations of US presidents: active-positive,

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Barber, “active-positive presidents want most to achieve results. Active-negatives aim to get and to keep power while passive-positives are after love. Passive-negatives emphasize their civic virtue” (Barber 2009, 10). Examples of Barber’s categorizations are Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy as active-positive presidents, Johnson and Nixon as

active-negative presidents, Taft and Harding as passive-positive presidents and Eisenhower and Coolidge as passive-negative presidents (Fox 2004). Taking into account that Reagan is also categorized as a passive-positive president has substantial impact on his policy-making, according to Barber (Barber 2009, 227).

3.2.2 Reagan as a passive-positive president

The categorization of president Reagan as passive-positive is substantiated by Barber with various arguments. A passive-positive president, according to Barber, is characterized as a “receptive, compliant, other-directed character whose life is a search for affection as a reward for being agreeable and cooperative rather than personally assertive” (Barber 2009, 10). Barber recognizes the positivity in Reagan’s character by relying on a multitude of accounts of people who were close to the president during his time in office. Casper Weinberger, Secretary of Defense under Reagan, for instance, stated to regard Reagan as “a happy man who wants to have all the people in the room that he’s meeting with happy, too” (Barber 2009, 230; Historical Office of the Secretary of Defense n.d.). Furthermore, journalist Robert Kaiser concluded from questioning several people who had been close to the president that “their accounts suggest a man who prefers fun to work, who loves to entertain and feel loved, who likes being President, but who rarely gets enthused about governing” (Barber 2009, 229).

This statement does not merely support the argument for the positivity of the

president, yet also the argument for the more passive side of his character. Barber describes Reagan as a reactive president who had an “antipathy for homework”, who often finished working at four o’clock and prefered to spend his energy on speaking and performance (Barber 2009, 228-230). The president himself seemed to agree, stating: “I heard hard work’s never killed anyone, but I figure, why take a chance?” (Barber 2009, 231). Although the latter might have been expressed jokingly, Barber argues that the statement does seem quite

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Barber suggests that the combination of these passive as well as positive elements in a president’s character result in a desire to please (Barber 2009, 237). In the case of Reagan, one can observe this in his evasion of tensions and controversy, often resulting in

compromise (Barber 2009, 230). Reagan has confirmed his preference for the latter on multiple occasions, stating for instance that he had learned during his time as president of the Screen Actors Guild that “you seldom got everything you asked for” (Reagan 1990, 171). He added that he “agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average” (Reagan 1990, 171). The latter can be seen as typical for the president who Barber describes as a patient, cooperative man (Barber 2009, 239). Barber continues, arguing that Reagan hence entered the presidential stage as a conservative, yet soon showed “flexibility” that was appreciated by liberals, while displeasing conservatives (Barber 2009, 232). The author even goes as far as calling Reagan’s conservatism “circumstantial” (Barber 2009, 237). After all, the president’s mindset was as follows: “the person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally - not a 20 percent traitor” (Beck and Balfe 2011, 212).

3.2.3 Trump as an active-negative president

Although Barber’s book does not categorize any president after George H.W. Bush and does therefore not include a categorization of Trump, following Barber’s line of theory, it is possible to construct an additional categorization of the current president. In an article for Newsweek, John Dean, former Nixon White House counsel, shares his categorization of Trump as an active-negative on the basis of Barber’s theory (Dean 2017; Dovere 2018). He claims that one can derive the active character of the president from his work drive, stating that Trump is a “workaholic” as he is “on the job 24/7; when not in his office or making an official trip, he is on the telephone or tweeting, related to his work as president” (Dean 2017). Dean ascribes the negative categorization to the fact that Trump “never laughs” and on his Twitter account reveals to be “a man constantly complaining or whining about most everything” (Dean 2017). This is of course merely one perspective on the possible categorization of Trump and does not automatically hold true. When one tests the

active-negative categorization of Trump purely on the basis of Barber’s theory, however, it does become clear that John Dean’s argument proves quite convincing.

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For instance, Barber notes that active-negative presidents have the sense that they live

in a “_{dangerous world}

”, with the prime threat being other people (Barber 2009, 82). As a

result, these presidents tend to divide humanity into the weak and the grasping, while at the same time idealizing ‘the people’ in a romantic way (Barber 2009, 82). The latter paradox can be recognized in Trump’s political style as well, before as well as after his election for

president. From the start of his campaign, he ran on a polarizing and at the same time populist platform, dividing society into the people versus the elite and into the American population versus, primarily Mexican, immigrants. As stated in a speech analysis published by the New York Times prior to his election, Trump “has a particular habit of saying ‘you’ and ‘we’ as he inveighs against a dangerous ‘them’ or unnamed other — usually outsiders like illegal

immigrants (“they’re pouring in”), Syrian migrants (“young, strong men”) and Mexicans, but also leaders of both political parties” (Healy and Haberman 2015). One can see this rhetorical style based on fear and danger reflected as well after Trump’s move into the White House. As Sean Spicer, the then White House spokesman of the Trump administration, for instance stated in February 2017: “what we need to do is to remind people that the Earth is a very dangerous place these days. That ISIS is trying to do us harm. And that the president’s commitment is to keep the country safe” (Altman 2017).

Furthermore, a wide range of statements made by president Trump reflect the

negativity and “struggle to control aggressive impulses” that Barber considers exemplary for active-negative presidents (Barber 2009, 81). These statements include insults and offensive nicknames towards fellow politicians and celebrities, primarily expressed on Twitter, and his aggressive stance towards news outlets. The latter have been the most regular target of the president’s critical tweets, with the president often accusing them of reporting “fake news” (Hughes 2018). For instance, the president tweeted on 1 July 2017: “I am extremely pleased to see that @CNN has finally been exposed as #FakeNews and garbage journalism. It's about time!” (Trump 2017, “I am extremely pleased”). Examples of the president’s offensive stance towards fellow politicians are his remarks about “Crooked Hillary”, his nickname for Hillary Clinton, and his comments on the “very foul mouthed Sen. John McCain” (Trump 2016; Trump 2017, “Crooked Hillary”). About the former he has for instance tweeted: “Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible

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towards for instance “truly weird” Senator Rand Paul, who the president has referred to as a “spoiled brat without a properly functioning brain” (Forbes 2015).

Furthermore, the aforementioned aggressive stance towards news outlets does not only show to support that Trump struggles with aggressive impulses, yet also that he “concentrates on whatever rhetorical tactics are necessary for his grand strategy” (Barber 2009, 47). Barber ascribes this to the character of an active-negative president as well, claiming that the cause, i.e. the agenda he is trying to push, is so important for the

active-negative president that he believes “_his

view of reality must be accepted lest the cause

fall apart” (Barber 2009, 47). One can for instance see this portrayed in the effort Trump spends on Twitter on refuting accounts by popular news outlets, for instance tweeting: “The Fake News Media works hard at disparaging & demeaning my use of social media because they don't want America to hear the real story!” (Trump 2017, “The Fake News Media”).

Moreover, Barber notes that one of the key characteristics of active-negative presidents is their self-concern, claiming that “his attention keeps returning to himself, his problems, how he is doing, as if he were forever watching himself” (Barber 2009, 81). This is yet another characteristic that can be recognized in the behavior and speech of president Trump, who can be seen devoting much attention to himself and his accomplishments. For instance, when the United States, according to Trump, reached its “highest stock market in history”, the president was quick to emphasize his personal contribution to this (Karl 2017). To reporters, he stated: “the reason our stock market is so successful is because of me” (Karl 2017). He continued: “I’ve always been great with money, I’ve always been great with jobs, that’s what I do. And I’ve done it well, I’ve done it really well, much better than people understand and they understand I’ve done well” (Karl 2017). The quote clearly reflects how the president finds it necessary to underline his personal impact, even repeating the fact several times.

Furthermore, Barber refers to active-negative presidents as being inflexible in shifting their stylistic repertoire (Barber 2009, 82). This slightly more detailed aspect of the

active-negative presidents can also be recognized in the speech of president Trump, who displays a habit of repeating similar words. As author and scholar Karl Simms states, Trump has a fondness of stock phrases, such as ‘believe me’, which Simms calls “by far the most common Trumpism” (Simms 2018).

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The president’s polarizing rhetoric, his aggressive style of speech, his self-concern and his inflexible stylistic repertoire therefore clearly show that the various characteristics of Barber’s active-negative president are detectable and that Trump can be therefore be

categorized as such.

A categorization as an active-negative president has a strong impact on presidential policy, Barber argues. In his chapter on active-negative presidents, in which he elaborates on former presidents Wilson, Hoover and Johnson, he concludes that his “thesis is that in each case highly significant policy failures were rooted in the President’s character” (Barber 2009, 80).

3.2.4 Theoretical comparison between the two presidential characters

Following the categorization of Reagan and Trump as a passive-positive and active-negative president respectively, one wonders how these characters compare to each other in Barber’s perspective. The categorizations themselves are quite interesting, because the two categories are the widest possibly apart. This immediately raises questions about the consequences of the difference between these two characters. What could the possible implications of these characters on the policy-making process be? And, considering the focus of this research, which character is more probable to be successful at converting his agenda into policy? Although Barber does not answer these comparative questions directly, one can see that the author does indicate the policy implications in each of his character analyses.

Barber’s perspective on the policy implications of the active-negative presidents is the most pessimistic and, according to presidential scholar Edwards III, “the most memorable” of the four, as Barber claims that the active-negative character is likely to produce tragedy (Barber 2009, vii). He states: “the primary risk in electing an active-negative character to the Presidency is the risk of disaster” (Barber 2009, 120). Thus, Barber does not necessarily sketch a positive foresight for the Trump presidency. He ascribes this predominantly to the common pattern of rigidification among active-negative presidents. Rigidification refers to the presidents rigidly persevering in a line of policy “long after it had proved itself a failure” (Barber 2009, iv; 34). This blindness, as the author refers to it, leads active-negative

presidents to defeat both their own purpose and the nation’s purpose. As such, Barber

portrays these presidents as men who “in the face of the _facts

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courses (Barber 2009, 35). He claims that as a result, the active-negative president, as Trump is, will continue an everlasting “fight against ‘giving in” (Barber 2009, 46).

The latter stands in stark contrast to Barber’s portrayal of Reagan. Although Barber’s account on passive-positive presidents as well as his personal account on Reagan do not paint a completely positive story either, it does not come close to the disastrous prospects he sketches for active-negative presidents. As mentioned previously, Reagan throughout the book is portrayed as a fairly lazy and often uninformed president. However, the essential difference to note between Reagan and Trump is their ability to compromise. Barber portrays Reagan as a man with a desire to please and an aversion of tensions and as mentioned before, his character therefore often proves open to compromise with opponents. In other words, as Trump would, according to Barber’s account of active-negative presidents, continue a perpetual fight against giving in, Reagan would most probably at a certain point give in or at least look for a bipartisan way out. Hence, the latter president being categorized as

passive-positive implies that, following Barber’s theory, Reagan has a slightly greater chance at policy success than Trump, being categorized as an active-negative. The reason behind this

lies not necessarily in exquisite persuasiveness and leadershipskills of Reagan, yet in the

positioning of the presidents within the policy-making process. According to Barber, the active-negative president is more likely to hold on stubbornly to his own ideas without showcasing any flexibility, while the passive-positive is more likely to book policy success,

be it moderate.

3.2.5 Theory on the effect of prior experience on performance

Apart from character, it is a widely held assumption that a person’s behavior is also shaped by experience. The literature on the psychological approach reflects this assumption as well for presidential behavior. Barber himself for instance underlines the importance of experience in his book by stating that “certain styles of action get confirmed by his experience”, referring to the president, “and he gradually adopts them as his own” (Barber 2009, 7). Furthermore, Barber refers to childhood experience as having a considerable effect on the later

performance of a president. He for instance claims that the active-negative president is likely to have experienced “severe deprivations of self-esteem in his childhood”, affecting his character and thereby indirectly affecting his eventual behavior in office (Barber 2009, 85).

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His argumentation for the indirect effect of experience on presidential policy-making is complemented by political science scholars researching the direct effects of predominantly prior work experience on a president’s success. Simon and Uscinski, researchers at the

University of Miami, have devoted their research to study how the latter exactly functions. As they state, many people “assume that ‘experienced’ presidents perform better”, but “citizens do not know which prior experiences help presidents perform successfully, or in what ways” (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 514). Academic literature, they argue, has failed to provide theoretical expectations and therefore failed to provide a clear answer to the issue as well (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 518).

In their research, Simon and Uscinski therefore study the effect of a range of variables of experience on the dependent variable of the president’s success in office (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 518). The independent variables studied include prior experience in national executive positions, national legislative positions, military experience, experience in state executive and legislative positions, years of total political service, experience in campaigns

and background, the latter referring tofor instance age and experience in the private sector

(Simon and Uscinski 2012, 528-533).

The study concludes that prior experience similar to the presidency will positively affect performance, while prior experience dissimilar to the presidency will have no or possibly even a negative impact on presidential performance. This can be attributed to the fact that “similar work activities are likely to provide opportunities to develop relevant knowledge and skill that can be applicable to performance in a new context” (Dokko et al. 2009, 52; Simon and Uscinski 2012, 521). More specifically, Simon and Uscinski conclude that the strongest predictors for presidential success are certain forms of military service and service as a governor of a big state, the latter being defined as a state having more electoral votes than the average state (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 531; 541). Measuring various aspects of leadership success, the scholars claim that a governor of a big state can for instance be expected to score better in the field of public persuasion and agenda setting (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 537). They ascribe this to the fact that governors “set agendas, work with legislative and judicial branches, interpret public opinion and receive focused media

attention”, tasks they state that not diverge too much from the responsibilities of a president (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 541). A governor of a big state specifically is predicted to

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perform even better as “being the chief executive of a large state is likely the closest simulation to the enormous task of the presidency” (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 541).

On the other hand, the research concludes that experience hindering presidential performance includes experience in the private sector. Their conclusions suggest, they state, that “while outsider status and private sector experience often seem desirable to voters, these experiences are so different from the work done in the White House that the transference of prior lessons is likely to hamper success” (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 542). The negative impact of experience in the private sector on presidential performance might sound

surprising, as business and private sector experience are often brought to the debate floor in a positive light during election campaigns (Simon Uscinski 2012, 533). However, according to Simon and Uscinski, the negative relation between the two variables is arguably rooted in the fact that the private sector in reality strongly differs from the public sector. As they claim: “the private sector lacks a separation of powers system and is far more flexible than the federal bureaucratic apparatus” (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 533). As a result, experience in the private sector can negatively predict congressional relations and administrative ability (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 533).

By testing the various types of prior experience on presidential success, Simon and Uscinski contribute, as they state themselves as well, “not only to the long-standing president-centered vs. presidency-centered debate, but also to a growing body of literature explaining how leaders’ backgrounds affect how they govern” (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 514). Namely, their conclusions indeed imply that experience, thus a president’s personal biography, holds significant consequences for their performance in office.

In order to provide a clear overview of the full scope of the psychological approach, it is necessary to elaborate on what these conclusions theoretically imply for the cases of

Reagan and Trump. In both these cases, one can observe that the president, during the election campaign, cited his prior experience as a beneficial factor for his possible future presidential performance. Reagan for instance stated during his presidential campaign in 1980 against then-president Jimmy Carter: “I have not had the experience the President has had in holding that office, but I think in being Governor of California, the most populous state in the Union- if it were a nation, it would have been the seventh-ranking economic power in the world- I, too, had some lonely moments and decisions to make” (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 516). In other words, Reagan believed his experience as governor of California would be

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beneficial to his presidential performance. Trump on the other hand, already stated in 2014 that he was of the opinion that “government needs to be run as a business” and that as an entrepreneur, he understood the concept of strong leadership that was necessary to achieve this (Beahm 2016, 70). During his 2016 presidential campaign, he repeated this idea frequently by for instance stating that “we need people in Washington that know how to make a deal” and referring to his background in the business sector as a possible contributor to his time in office (Beahm 2016, 70; Eichenwald 2016; Trump 2015).

However, as Simon and Uscinski’s research has indicated, Reagan’s assumption arguably holds more true than Trump’s. Namely, having similar prior experience to the presidency as governor of a big state, Reagan can be expected to have performed better as he was more experienced in coping with the institutional apparatus of the US government. Trump, on the other hand, having prior experience in the business sector and being an outsider in Washington spheres, can be expected to have more difficulty during his

presidency as the private sector does not experience the institutional constraints of the system of checks and balances that the public sector does. Following Simon and Uscinski’s line of theory, one can expect upon analysis of his case that due to his prior experience president Trump will be seen having struggles with congressional relations, administrative abilities and the shared powers of the federal system (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 533).

Comparing the theoretical implications of Simon and Uscinski’s work for the Reagan and Trump case respectively, one can observe a clear difference between the two presidents. Namely, while Reagan is expected to perform better because of his prior experience in public office, the performance of Trump is expected to be hindered because of his prior experience in the private sector. This negative prediction for Trump and more positive prediction for Reagan reflects a similar conclusion to the theoretical implications of Barber’s theory. This similarity is not completely surprising, as Simon and Uscinski’s research in a way

complements Barber’s research. As previously mentioned, Barber states in his book that he beliefs that experience is one of the aspects that shapes a presidential character and thus presidential behavior. However, he does not study specifically how which kind of experience directly predicts presidential performance. Simon and Uscinski hence do not serve to

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3.3 Theoretical comparison between the two approaches

All in all, posing the two approaches, being institutionalist and psychological, next to each other provides one with a clear overview of the contradictory arguments made on each side. Although both lines of theory provide a framework to assess presidential policy-making, the contrast between the two is evident. One of the smaller differences, yet worth mentioning, is that for instance Barber’s theory clearly seems to carry out more of a normative element while Tsebelis’ veto player theory actively distances himself from doing so. One can see this clearly in their writings, as for instance Tsebelis states that “while most of the literature on policy change and policy stability has a serious normative component, I do not wish to follow suit” (Tsebelis 2000, 443). Barber’s book, however, is claimed to aim at developing clear criteria for choosing presidents in order to answer the question: “What should we look for in a president?” (Barber 2009, iii). The normativity and predictivity of this part of the

psychological approach are not of central importance in this research, as this research merely

seeks to analyze the policy successes and failures of a president.The most relevant

contribution of this line of theory to be used in this research is therefore not that character and

experience can predict presidential performance, but that it can _explain

it.

However, more importantly, the conclusions of the two lines of theory are

considerably divergent, the one theory arguing that institutionalist factors predominantly determine policy success or failure and the other theory arguing that the president’s character and experience has an enormous influence on the outcome of policy. The fact that the

dependent variables differ, being policy stability on the institutionalist side and presidential performance on the psychological side, does not prove problematic. Namely, the implications of their conclusions both reflect on presidential policy-making. For instance, policy stability is defined by Tsebelis to be “the potential for policy change in different institutional settings” (Tsebelis 1995, 292). The latter implies the potential for policy success for any

policy-making authority in a given system, including the president. On the other side, presidential performance, as described by Barber and Simon and Uscinski, is also indicated by a president’s policy successes.

One can see that the two contrasting approaches towards presidential policy success hence provide different dominant factors in analyzing the success of presidential

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policy-making. Posing the psychological approach and veto player theory directly against each other, however, does not mean to establish that the psychological approach does not allow the existence of veto players. Namely, Barber and Simon and Uscinski do not

necessarily dismiss the existence and influence of veto players. In his book, Barber mentions

the environment in which a president is situatedas an influential factor on presidential

success. The key difference is that overall Barber and his colleagues argue that character and experience shapes the manner in which a president carries out his policies and that this is therefore the predominant key to understanding presidential policy-making.

Relating this back to the president-centered versus presidency-centered debate, the case study at hand thus has similar implications as Simon and Uscinski’s research: if the data shows that “a factor internal to the individual presidents, affects their performance, then this would provide support for president-centered arguments” (Simon and Uscinski 2012, 520). In contrast, if this case study on Reagan and Trump shows that the system, i.e. external factors, predominantly affects a president’s policy-making success, this would provide support for the presidency-centered approach.

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4 |

Hypotheses

Posing the two diverging sets of variables against each other by analyzing each one’s effect on the success or failure of policy-making in the case of Reagan and Trump, this research proposes the following two hypotheses:

1. A US president’s success in policy-making is determined by a majority in Congress and the justice system, i.e. institutionalist factors.

2. A US president’s success in policy-making is determined by his prior experience and character, i.e. psychological factors.

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5 |

Methods

In order to be able to either confirm or invalidate the hypotheses set out above, I will, as previously mentioned, conduct a comparative case study on the Reagan and the Trump

administration. Asthe motivation behind my research is the desire to be able to analyze the

current administration and its policy-making in such manner that one can form a conclusion about the current and perhaps a prediction about the future success of policy-making by president Trump, a case study in the form of an analogy with Reagan has proven the ideal case for reasons of their, on the surface, shared presidential profile. While the former has been in office since 2017, the latter resided in the White House from 1981 until 1989 (Beckwith 2018; The White House n.d.). However, as mentioned in the introduction, the similarity between the two figures is far-reaching, including their prior roles in the entertainment industry, the arrival into the presidential office under the skeptic eye of the American media and opposition and their policies that were passed and blocked during this first year (Collinson et al; Drezner 2018; Reston 1982; The Economist 2018). Not

insignificantly, moreover, one can argue that both Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan ran their campaign on a widely populist platform, already reflected by their slogan to “Make America great again” (Buchanan 2017; Tumulty 2017). Both presidents subsequently won their campaigns promising fundamental reform to enter “an era of national renewal” and “a new American moment” as stated by Reagan and Trump respectively (BBC News, “State of the Union” 2018; Drake and Wieghart 1981).

All in all, the two presidents at hand were thus both heavily criticized presidents with an entertainment background, running on a populist platform and promising a new era in American politics and policy-making and prove excellent material for a case study by analogy. The case study on these presidents will be limited to their first year of presidency,

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being 1981 and 2017 respectively, for Trump has been in office only just over one year and the scope of the research is limited. It will be done so in a qualitative manner.

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6 |

Availability of Data

The sources necessary for this research have been gathered by means of online catalogues as for instance the UvA library website, the Wiley online library and ScienceDirect.

Furthermore, this research will make use of books, scholarly articles, news media reports, US government papers and websites, presidential speeches and, in the case of Trump, tweets. It should be noted, especially since president Trump has been in a continuous battle with the media during his presidency, that news media reports can be biased. In this research, this fact has been taken into consideration and the media reports used are derived from reliable

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7 |

Empirical Analysis

7.1 State of affairs during Reagan’s and Trump’s first year

As previously mentioned, the theory on the drivers behind policy success is divided. In order to reach a verdict regarding this issue for the cases of president Reagan and president Trump, an essential step is to determine, for the case of veto player theory, what the veto player configurations were at the time of the presidents’ first year and to analyze what this predicts for the cases theoretically. Following Tsebelis’ theory, in order to do so, one ought to analyze three variables: the number of veto players, the incongruence of the veto players and the coherence within veto players. Concerning the first of the three, this research has previously discussed that in the United States, there are generally three institutional veto players: the president, the House of Representatives and the Senate. From the president’s perspective, the president himself is not a veto player when proposing his own policy, as one is able to

assume that the president agrees with himself. Hence, for the cases of Reagan and Trump, the amount of fixed institutional veto players is two, with the possibility of increasing in special circumstances. If one then turns to the incongruence of the veto players in each of these cases, one starts to see differences between the two presidencies. While Trump has enjoyed a Republican majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, Reagan was facing a divided government in his first presidential year. The 97th Congress, which was in place from January 1981 until January 1983, was namely composed of a Republican Senate and a Democratic House of Representatives (Manning 2018, 1; US

House of Representatives n.d.; US Senate, "Party Division" n.d.). Hence, the distance

between the two chambers and between the chambers and the president was considerably larger during the first year of Reagan than Trump. In other words, Trump’s first year of

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presidency saw low incongruence, while Reagan faced high incongruence in his first year. Furthermore, concerning cohesion, one can see slight similarities between the two

presidencies. As Reagan faced a Republican majority of 53 over 47 in the Senate and a Democratic majority of 243 over 192 in the House of Representatives, Trump is facing a Republican majority of 51 over 49 in the Senate as well as a Republican majority in the

House of 237 over 197 (Manning 2018, 1; US House of Representatives n.d.; US Senate,

"Party Division" n.d.). In other words, the differences in size of the majorities are not that large and as a result, one can conclude that two strong opposing parties in Congress can be observed during both of the presidencies. Hence, one can argue that one sees low cohesion within the veto players during the first year of both the Reagan and the Trump presidency.

The result of the high incongruence and low cohesion in Reagan’s first year compared

to low incongruence and lowcohesion in Trump’s first year suggests, following veto player

theory, that policy stability is likely to be lower during Trump’s first year. In other words, veto player theory would suggest that Trump is more likely to change the status quo and be successful in introducing his policy. This suggestion is, however, merely based on theory. The question is whether it holds in reality as well.

7.2 The political agenda of Reagan and Trump

In order to be able to empirically research the driving factors behind presidential policy success, one first needs to establish the presidential policy agenda of both Reagan and Trump. After all, as previously mentioned, presidential success is defined in this research as the presidents getting their agenda passed in the form of proposed policies. Even though it was previously shown that presidents Reagan and Trump, character-wise, are not as alike as one might think, their campaign trail and agenda do show some great similarities. Both

presidents, for instance, in their populist style promised a revolution to “make America great again” (Drezner; Tumulty). Reagan and Trump furthermore shared some of their key agenda elements, such as their intent to considerably lower taxes. However, Reagan’s election campaign was predominantly economically focused, with the president further vowing to limit domestic government spending by means of for instance social security cuts (Hogan 2016, 139). Trump, on the other hand, focused his campaign promises largely on

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immigration, promising to build a wall between the US and Mexico and to limit the influx of Muslims into the United States. Furthermore, the repeal of Obamacare was high on Trump’s agenda, as well as the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord (BBC News, "Trump's campaign promises" 2018).

Now that the agenda of both Reagan and Trump respectively has been established, the question arises whether they managed to pass this agenda as well. In other words, were these agenda elements converted into policy failure or success?

7.3 Presidential policy-making during Trump’s first year

The media coverage on the first years of Reagan and Trump portrays quite colored and critical accounts. Trump however, as previously mentioned, clearly had a diverging opinion from the more critical accounts, stating that he had “signed more legislation than anybody” by 27 December 2017 (BBC News, “State of the Union” 2018). However, that statement can quickly be refuted as a fact check proved that, in reality, president Trump by December of his first year held the lowest number of passed legislation of all presidents since Eisenhower (Struyk 2017). This fact, in the light of the beneficial veto player configurations, is slightly surprising and demands further analysis.

Throughout the first year of the Trump presidency, one can indeed see quite

substantial political opposition to the policy proposals of Trump’s agenda. Two of the most notable instances of this are the repetitive blockage of the travel ban and the failed efforts to repeal Obamacare. The former was introduced by president Trump by means of Executive Order 13769 on 27 January 2017 (Exec. Order No. 13769 2017). Ever since, the issue has been entangled in a continued legal battle.

7.3.1 The travel ban

The first travel ban that Trump introduced halted Syrian refugees and barred citizens from seven countries, being Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, for 90 days (Beckwith 2018; Exec. Order No. 13769 2017). In his argumentation for the measure, one can recognize the “dangerous world” perception of Barber’s active-negative president, as the