The Leadership Lectures: Nicol C. Rae, Ph.D.

The Myth of the Mandate discusses the 2012 presidential election from three perspectives. The first is that electoral mandates are largely mythical and, further, that perceptions of an ideological or policy mandate from their election is invariably a political trap for presidents. The second perspective is what presidential campaigns tell us about presidential leadership: does the nature of the presidential selection process demand qualities from successful candidates that are also important for their conduct of the presidency once in office? Finally, Professor Rae will discuss the 2012 campaign to date in the light of the first two perspectives and the current state of American politics and the party system.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Nicol C. Rae, Ph.D. is Senior Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences and a Professor of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University. He has an MA from the University of Edinburgh (1982) and a D. Phil from Oxford University (1986). Rae’s research and teaching have focused on Congress, the presidency, and American political parties. His most recent book (co-edited with Timothy Power) is Exporting Congress: The Influence of the US Congress on World Legislatures (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006).

Professor Rae is also the author of The Decline & Fall of the Liberal Republicans: From 1952 to the Present (Oxford University Press, 1989), Southern Democrats (Oxford University Press, 1994), and Conservative Reformers: The Republican Freshmen and the Lessons of the 104th Congress (M. E. Sharpe, 1998), and co-author (with Tim Hames) of Governing America (Manchester University Press, 1996) and (with Colton C. Campbell) of Impeaching Clinton: Partisan Strife on Capitol Hill (University of Kansas Press, 2003). In addition, Professor Rae is co-editor (with Campbell) of New Majority or Old Minority? The Impact of Republicans on Congress (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999) and The Contentious Senate: Partisanship, Ideology and the Myth of Cool Judgment (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), and (with Campbell and John F. Stack, Jr.) of Congress and the Politics of US Foreign Policy (Prentice-Hall, 2003).

Rae has published articles in several academic journals, including: Electoral Studies, The British Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Party Politics, and The Forum, and has contributed chapters to several edited scholarly volumes. He was awarded a Congressional Fellowship by the American Political Science Association in 1995-1996 and served as a Capitol Hill aide to Congressman George P. Radanovich of California, and Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi. Rae was a Visiting Professor at Yale University.