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Why Presidents Fail and How They Can Succeed Again
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Why Presidents Fail and How They Can Succeed Again

Elaine C. Kamarck
Brookings Institution Press, 2016

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Eye Opening
  • Background

Recommendation

What do the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission, the lead-up to the September 11, 2001 attacks, the hapless response to Hurricane Katrina and the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov have in common? They exemplify failed presidential leadership. They all have roots in a president’s failure to “balance…policy, communication and implementation.” Brookings Institution senior fellow Elaine C. Kamarck relates the causes and details of various presidential failures. Most of these downfalls, she reports – drawing examples from both Republican and Democratic administrations – stem from chief executives’ overreliance on communicating with the public at the expense of policy and implementation, and from their unfamiliarity with the depth, history and power of the bureaucracy they head. While always politically neutral, getAbstract suggests this timely thesis to students, professors, policy makers, political campaigners and strategists, lobbyists, government employees, and readers who ponder the state of the US presidency.

Take-Aways

  • Successful US presidents “balance…policy, communication and implementation.”
  • Presidents need a sophisticated understanding of the US government.
  • Jimmy Carter didn’t understand the state of the military when he ordered troops into the Iranian desert to rescue US embassy hostages in 1980.

About the Author

Elaine C. Kamarck, who holds her PhD in political science, is a veteran of several Democratic administrations. She is a Brookings Institution senior fellow and a faculty member at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

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