Unleashing Presidential Power: The Politics of Pets in the White House

In this article, we use a multimethod approach to shed light on the strategic use of presidential pets. We draw on primary source materials to demonstrate that pets are an important power center in the White House. Then we turn to presidents' strategic use of their pets in public. We present a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PS, political science & politics political science & politics, 2012-07, Vol.45 (3), p.395-400
Main Authors: Maltzman, Forrest, Lebovic, James H., Saunders, Elizabeth N., Furth, Emma
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cats
Dogs
Evidence
Executive branch
Foreign Policy
Inferences
Meetings
Pets
Political campaigns
Political Power
Political science
Political theory
Positron emission tomography
Power
Presidential powers
Presidents
Scandals
Socks
Speech
SPOTLIGHT
War
War economics
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Summary:In this article, we use a multimethod approach to shed light on the strategic use of presidential pets. We draw on primary source materials to demonstrate that pets are an important power center in the White House. Then we turn to presidents' strategic use of their pets in public. We present a theoretical framework and statistical evidence to explore the conditions under which presidents are most likely to trot out their four-legged friends. We show that presidents carefully gauge the best and worst times to conduct a dog and pony show. In times of war or scandal, dogs are welcome public companions, but not so in periods of economic hardship.
ISSN:1049-0965
1537-5935
DOI:10.1017/S1049096512000297