Abstract
In his classic study of political power, Bertrand de Jouvenal presents several models of political succession in Polynesia. On Tonga, a king was selected from a single family. Upon assuming office, all inhabitants of the island kissed his feet. Whenever he spoke, they responded in unison, “How true!” But this leader exercised no direct political power. Upon taking office, he lived apart and prayed and mediated. Another leader, chosen in a contest, ruled. Jouvenal calls the one the “passive king” and the other, the “active king.” He notes that in the Fiji islands the leaders bore the names, “the respectable king” and the “root of war.”
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Notes
Bertrand de Jouvenal, Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), pp. 98–99.
C. H. Dood, “Political Succession in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey,” in Peter Calvert, ed., The Process of Political Succession (London: Macmillan, 1987), p. 82.
Robbins Burling, The Passage of Power: Studies in Political Succession (New York: Academic Press, 1974), p. 214.
See, for example: Peter Calvert, “The Theory of Political Succession” in Calvert, ed., The Process of Political Succession, pp. 245–65; Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989); Michael Saward, Democracy (London: Polity Press, 2003); Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1943).
For a review of this phenomenon in theory and a critique of practice, see Richard A. Brody, Assessing the President (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 27–44.
Philip Abbott, Marjorie Sarbaugh-Thompson, and Lyke Thompson, “The Social Construction of a Legitimate Presidency,” Studies in American Political Development (Fall 2002), pp. 208–230.
Martin Van Buren, Inquiry into the Origin and Cause of Political Parties in the United States (New York, 1876), p. 290.
Sergio Bertelli, The King’s Body (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), pp. 214–30.
James E. Campbell divides presidential elections into four categories (near dead heats, close contests, moderate competitive elections, and landslides). One-third of the elections constitute landslides. The American Campaign: US Presidential Elections and the National Vote (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2000), pp. 163–85.
Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven, Ct: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 119–31. The inclusion problem, of course, is coterminous for the entire history of presidential elections with respect to African Americans and was prominent in the 2000 election recount.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “On Presidential Succession.” Political Science Quarterly 89 (1974), pp. 475–505.
Hugh Williamson of North Carolina explicitly made this point. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Constitutional Convention (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 2:537. Joel K. Goldstein, however, contends that there was no compelling reason for the creation of the office on these terms. The Modern Vice Presidency (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 5.
See Ruth C. Silva, Presidential Succession (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), p. 13.
Richard P. McCormick reviews these “uncertain rules for a hazardous game” in The Presidential Game: The Origin of Presidential Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1882).
Henry Adams, ed., The Writings of Albert Gallatin (Philadelphia, 1879), 1:51.
Donald Lutz, Philip Abbott, Barbara Allen, and Russell Hansen “The Electoral College in Historical and Philosophical Perspective” in Paul D. Schumaker and Burdett A. Loomis, eds., Choosing a President: The Electoral College and Beyond (New York: Chatham House, 2002), pp. 35–40.
Jody C. Baumgartner, The American Vice President Reconsidered (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), pp. 14–16.
See chapter 10. For a general appraisal, see John D. Feerick, The Twenty-Fifth Amendment (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992), pp. 193–239.
Vance R. Kincaide, Jr. reviews these cases in Heirs Apparent: Solving the Vice presidential Dilemma (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000).
James David Barber, The Presidential Character (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972), p. 9.
Steven J. Rubenzer and Thomas R. Faschingbauer, Personality, Character, and Leadership in the White House (Potomac books: Washington, DC, 2004), pp. 22, 25.
Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 47–48.
Ibid., pp. 229, 259. For Skowronek, TR is also a difficult case since his policies bore some resemblance to reconstructive politics and his campaign for the presidency in 1912 promised major departures.
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© 2008 Philip Abbott
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Abbott, P. (2008). Succession and Democratic Theory. In: Accidental Presidents. The Evolving American Presidency Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230613034_1
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