This article argues that the way we understand presidential success should be different for presidents in different contexts. It provides the first deeper exploration of success for Skowronek's "disjunctive" presidents and finds that, particularly when these presidents engage in policy experimentation, they can play an important role in preparing the way for a later reconstruction. Although the presidents of disjunction are particularly constrained, they are capable of success as long as we judge them realistically and acknowledge that they may receive little credit for their concrete achievements. We illustrate this contention through the presidencies of Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, which exemplify the degrees of success available within the constraints of a faltering partisan regime.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.