The Performative Presidency

Jason L. Mast is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Karl Mannheim Chair for Cultural Studies at Zeppelin University, Germany.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Presidential leadership under the conditions of defusion; 3. Character formation: the rise of two Bill Clintons, 1992; 4. The profanation of a president, 1992–4: presidential character, the 'climate of suspicion', and the culture of scandal; 5. The Conservative revolution as purification and its subsequent pollution: the rise and fall of Newt Gingrich, and the fall and rise of Bill Clinton; 6. Birth of a symbolic inversion: Clinton (re-)fuses with the presidential character; 7. The second term: the Republicans' polluting scandal and Clinton's successful performance; 8. Conclusion.

'Given the large number of books that examine Bill Clinton and his presidency, it is extraordinary that Jason Mast tells us something new in his compelling account. By viewing Bill Clinton through the lens of performance theory, Mast manages to elucidate in new ways the 'disconnect' between the public and private Clinton that continues to intrigue his friends and foes.' Mabel Berezin, Cornell University