Shifting Currents: Dwight Eisenhower and the Dynamic of Presidential Opportunity Structure

Abstract

The opportunity structure framework has become a cornerstone of presidency research over the past generation. Yet the way scholars have construed opportunity structure has been too narrow. Where they have stressed the partisan regime context in which a president is situated, other contextual elements often weigh more heavily on a president's calculation of what he can and cannot do. Further, the regime context is relatively static within any administration, but the opportunity structure a president faces will change rapidly. These choices are often the consequence of a president's earlier actions. His choices will set in motion new forces to which he will later have to respond. The presidency of Dwight Eisenhower serves to illustrate the value of a broadened and more dynamic conception of the opportunity structure approach.

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