The Skowronek Theory of Presidential Cycles

[Heebie Jeebie]

Stephen Skowronek has a theory about presidential elections. He looks at the sequence of ‘political time’, the historical pattern of the American presidency that has repeated itself over the last 200 years. The sequence goes from “reconstructive” presidents who transform politics in their own image (Roosevelt, Reagan), followed by their handpicked successors (Truman, Bush ‘41) ; in turn they are usually succeeded by presidents Skowronek calls “pre-emptive”, who adopt the reigning orthodoxy of their parties (Eisenhower, Bill Clinton) followed by a faithful servant of that orthodoxy (Kennedy/Johnson, Bush ‘43) followed by another pre-emptive opposition leader (Nixon, Obama). The final stage is the “disjunctive” leader, who is outside their party’s orthodoxy, and that’s where we are now with Trump.  https://isps.yale.edu/news/blog/2016/12/skowronek-views-the-trump-win-through-political-time

It's an interesting idea, but I think Skowronek is off on his pairings.  I'd say
Hoover = Carter
FDR = Reagan/Bush '41
Truman = Clinton
Eisenhower = Bush '43
JFK/LBJ = Obama
Nixon/Ford = Trump/Pence

So, if you think Skoronek is right, Trump is due to lose in 2020.  If I'm right, Trump is due to win.  Anyway, political theories like this are fun fluff.  Any thoughts?

[Heebie Jeebie]

Stephen Skowronek has a theory about presidential elections. He looks at the sequence of ‘political time’, the historical pattern of the American presidency that has repeated itself over the last 200 years. The sequence goes from “reconstructive” presidents who transform politics in their own image (Roosevelt, Reagan), followed by their handpicked successors (Truman, Bush ‘41) ; in turn they are usually succeeded by presidents Skowronek calls “pre-emptive”, who adopt the reigning orthodoxy of their parties (Eisenhower, Bill Clinton) followed by a faithful servant of that orthodoxy (Kennedy/Johnson, Bush ‘43) followed by another pre-emptive opposition leader (Nixon, Obama). The final stage is the “disjunctive” leader, who is outside their party’s orthodoxy, and that’s where we are now with Trump.  https://isps.yale.edu/news/blog/2016/12/skowronek-views-the-trump-win-through-political-time

It's an interesting idea, but I think Skowronek is off on his pairings.  I'd say
Hoover = Carter
FDR = Reagan/Bush '41
Truman = Clinton
Eisenhower = Bush '43
JFK/LBJ = Obama
Nixon/Ford = Trump/Pence

So, if you think Skoronek is right, Trump is due to lose in 2020.  If I'm right, Trump is due to win.  Anyway, political theories like this are fun fluff.  Any thoughts?

I teach this theory in my intro to American politics course every year (largely as a contrast to more quantitatively oriented political science).  I don’t understand how your pairings work.  How can Democrats be paired with Democrats some of the time and with Republicans other times?  The idea behind Skowronek’s theory is that at any point there is a dominant “regime” that gradually enervates, and the president can either be allied with the regime or opposed to it.  I’m not sure what the underlying idea to your pairings is.

My view is that a new generation asserts itself every 24 years (1944, 1968, 1992, 2016) and redefines the politics of the subsequent era.  These years are obviously not necessarily moments of party realignment, but I'd argue the Democratic Parties of Bill Clinton and Harry Truman were substantively different from the parties of Jimmy Carter and FDR, respectively.  Clinton and Truman were continuing the leftist tradition of their forebears obviously, but they were each at the beginning of a new dominant "regime."  Hence, I'd classify both Clinton and Truman as "consolidators" of the ideological victories of the previous generation's arguments.  Or, to put all this less abstractly, I think Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party of the 90s had more in common with Reagan/Bush Republicans than with Carter/Mondale/Dukakis Democrats. 

[Heebie Jeebie]

I tend to think of all these theories as bunk because they never go more than two generations back and break down as a result. Would Grover Cleveland really work as a disruptor to an era of GOP dominance that went back a quarter century, for example?

The thinking where politics seems to have started with FDR leads to a lot of myopia. It's this weird sort of Greatest Generation onward solipsism that history began with World War II/the Depression and there's nothing worth looking at further back, but that means you're dealing with a sample size of 13 presidents and 22 elections (assuming we're starting from 1932), and you cannot possibly make any serious trend argument with such a small sample size.

I mostly agree, but I think you can go all the way back to the years just after the Civil War and the symmetries don't look that outlandish:

Carter = Hoover = Garfield/Arthur
Reagan/Bush '41 = FDR = Cleveland/Harrison '23/Cleveland
Clinton = Truman = McKinley/1st-term-TR
Bush '43 = Eisenhower = 2nd-term-TR/Taft
Obama = JFK/LBJ = Wilson
Trump = Nixon/Ford = Harding/Coolidge = 2nd-term-Grant/Hayes

Again, these don't work perfectly, but if you squint hard enough you can kind of start to see a cyclical pattern.

[Heebie Jeebie]

I think there are problems with both of these. For yours, why is Clinton Truman when Reagan/Bush are FDR? Reagan/Bush/Clinton as FDR/Truman/Eisenhower is actually a pretty good analogy, and I've long thought of Clinton as the Democratic Eisenhower. For the one in the link, I don't see what is particularly "disjunctive" about Carter as compared to other Dems at the time.

For me, it's like this...

Nixon/Ford = Harding/Coolidge = 2nd-term-Grant/Hayes
8 Years of Excess and Corruption

Carter = Hoover = Garfield/Arthur
4 Years of Failed Attempts to Return to the Earlier Status Quo

Reagan/Bush '41 = FDR = Cleveland/Harrison '23/Cleveland
12 Years of Establishing of the New Dominant Ideological Regime

Clinton = Truman = McKinley/1st-term-TR
8 Years of Consolidation Holding Back the Reactionaries

Bush '43 = Eisenhower = 2nd-term-TR/Taft
8 Years of Acceptance on the Part of the Opposition

Obama = JFK/LBJ = Wilson
8 Years of Pressing the Limits of the Dominant Ideology

Trump = Nixon/Ford = Harding/Coolidge
Back to Excess and Corruption

[Heebie Jeebie]

The cycle is based off of the political cycle, not on a specified time frame. It just doesnt make sense otherwise.

I think the time frame is often more telling than the party ID in many cases, especially since the parties are basically redefined every 24 years.  Elaborating on some of my comparisons...

Nixon/Ford = Harding/Coolidge = 2nd-term-Grant/Hayes
8 Years of Excess and Corruption - Nixon, Harding, and Grant each presided over scandal-plagued administrations, and their successors had little impact in restoring faith in government.

Carter = Hoover = Garfield/Arthur
4 Years of Failed Attempts to Return to the Earlier Status Quo - Carter, Hoover, and Garfield each found their appeal as competent outsiders who promised a return to trustworthy governance, but all three (and Arthur) were unable to deal with the economic challenges of their time (Stagflation, The Great Depression, and 1882 Depression, respectively).

Reagan/Bush '41 = FDR = Cleveland/Harrison '23/Cleveland
12 Years of Establishing of the New Dominant Ideological Regime - Bush is basically Reagan's third term if he could have had a third term and, while the differences between Cleveland and Harrison are a bit more stark, both Cleveland and Harrison shifted the national debate away from the sectional and racial arguments of the previous generation and toward finance and industrial policy.  The boundaries of the national debate were redrawn in fundamental ways during this period.

Clinton = Truman = McKinley/1st-term-TR
8 Years of Consolidation Holding Back the Reactionaries - Clinton, Truman, and McKinley/TR were all presidents with big plans who failed to substantially alter domestic politics.  But while domestically they found themselves in a holding pattern, internationally they redefined America's role in the world.  Clinton managed the fall of Communism, Truman managed the fall of Fascism, and McKinley managed the fall of New World (Spanish) imperialism.

Bush '43 = Eisenhower = 2nd-term-TR/Taft
8 Years of Acceptance on the Part of the Opposition - Bush, Eisenhower, and TR/Taft were leaders of the "right" who nevertheless rejected the reactionary impulses of their parties and embraced the ideological status quo...in service of the extremely wealthy.  Regressive presidencies, but within limits.  Internationally, all three represent periods of America getting entangled in counterproductive pseudo-imperialist boondoggles.

Obama = JFK/LBJ = Wilson
8 Years of Pressing the Limits of the Dominant Ideology - Obama, JFK, LBJ, and Wilson all pushed aggressively to address the problems inherited from their predecessors, but the ideological and political constraints established several steps back in the cycle prevented more from being done.   Basically, the limitations of the dominant ideological regime are proven too intransigent during these years.  The potential in the cycle is exhausted, which leads us...

Trump = Nixon/Ford = Harding/Coolidge
Back to Excess and Corruption