The President's Party

This paper examines some of the mechanisms through which the American presidency may adapt to the more decentralized governing environment which has confronted recent Chief Executives. In it we will argue that new, institutionalized means have emerged in order to coordinate the electoral and policy activity of various presidentially affiliated groups. We use the term "president's party" to refer to this pattern. A president's party was present during the early years of the Reagan administration but, subsequently, it declined. The final section of the paper describes a set of conditions which will revive the president's party within eight years.