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volatility, buoyancy, and polarization. In addition, borrowing from both the cumulative decision
and psychological response explanations, the patterns evidenced are consistent with the agenda
articulation approach, which reasons presidential approval reflects the president’s ability to
define an agenda by staking positions on salient issues early in the administration.
Volatility, buoyancy, and polarization are useful because they allow us to make
comparative assessments of the modern presidents at similar points during their terms. Simply,
utilizing a comparative approach and looking beyond single-presidency trend lines, we are able
to identify larger deterministic patterns. This comparative approach is inherent in the way we
conceptualize and measure these dimensions of approval. Approval volatility measures a
president’s short-term fluctuations in approval relative his colleagues and controls for larger
trends, such as either downward or upward drift, in approval. Approval buoyancy taps the ability
of the president to earn and sustain approval relative his colleagues at similar points in the term.
Approval polarization identifies the range between in- and out-party approval for each president
relative his colleagues throughout the term.
Agenda Articulation
The nature of majoritarian election rules compels presidential candidates to cobble
together disparate groups in an effort to build a broad coalition of support. Efforts to build this
support often result in presidential campaigns that are marked by rhetoric, promises, and the
embracement of valance issues. But once elected, the early period of a president’s term is
marked by a flurry of policy-defining activity as presidents immediately begin the process of
defining and acting on an agenda (Burke 2000, 5). Policy-defining activities are those activities
that signal both the direction and means of a president’s agenda. Indications of the public policy
direction of a new administration, and the means by which it hopes to accomplish its goals, may
Convention