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The President's Image as Diplomat in Chief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Abstract

This article describes and analyzes a number of complications involved in presidential image identification and assessment (including distinctions among the various categories of summit diplomacy), selected images of past presidents, the role of the media, opinion polls, and surveys of “experts” in reflecting presidential images and prestige, and more precisely the president's image as diplomat in chief. Included are a description of the fluctuation in individual president's popularity ratings as related to selected foreign relations events, a comparative table of high, low, and average popular approval ratings for recent presidents beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, a comparative table of superior presidential rankings by “experts” throughout our history, and a table, with commentary, of presidential popular rating shifts following major summit ventures of the president since 1941. This article constitutes an introductory macro-treatment of the generalized aggregate of contemporary and historical perceptions of the president as diplomat in chief.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1985

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References

Notes

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6 Compiled from Tables 2, 3, and 7 in Garry M. Maranell, “The Evaluation of Presidents: An Extension of the Schlesinger Polls,” Journal of American History, 57 (June 1970), 107–108, and 111 This is also excerpted in “The Office Filled,” chapter 17 in Mary Klein, ed., The Presidency: The Power and the Glory (Minneapolis: Winston, 1973), pp. 142–45. Also see Gary M. Maranell and Richard Dodder, “Political Orientation and Evaluation of Presidential Prestige: A Study of American Historians,” Social Science Quarterly, 51 (September 1970), 415–21.

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