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Dr Nigel Bowles awarded Richard E Neustadt Prize

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Dr Nigel Bowles has been awarded the Richard E Neustadt Prize for his book Nixon`s Business (Texas A&M University Press, 2005).
The decision was a unanimous one of the Prize Committee of the American Politics Group of the Political Studies Association of the UK. At the presentation of the award, the Committee`s Chairman said that Nixon`s Business, a book on the formulation and implementation of President Richard Nixon`s economic policy, was a wonderful, insightful, study of Nixon`s presidency`.

Nigel combined and extended Richard Neustadts model of presidential power with methodologies from political science and history to contribute to scholarly understanding of the nature of presidential power and authority. He drew heavily on records in congressional archives across America, Presidential Libraries and the National Archives. The book provides an insightful analysis of the president`s bargaining advantages in each of the six cases the book examines: his constitutional and statutory authority, presidential reputation, popular prestige and personal qualities. The Prize Committee Chairman concluded by observing that Nixon`s Business ... provides us with new perspectives on a president`s sources and use of authority and power, his dealings with and views of senior politicians; his ruthlessness and political ingenuity; the ways his experiences as a member of the House, as a senator, and as vice-president moulded his approach to the presidency; and his subordination of other objectives to his drive for re-election`.

Nigel Bowles is Honor Balfour Fellow in Politics at St Anne`s College, Oxford University. He is the author of The White House and Capitol Hill and The Government and Politics of the United States.