A new (misleading) ranking of US presidents by historians has gotten a lot of press lately. But I haven't seen anyone note that the last question of the recent TRIP survey (a survey of international relations scholars in 10 countries) asked the participants to rate the 3 most effective US presidents in terms of US foreign policy. The results? Unsurprisingly, FDR came in first by a landslide - he was listed on 69% of the surveys, and 68% of those submitted by US scholars. Among US international relations scholars Clinton came in second with mentions on 36% of the US surveys, while Truman, Nixon, Kennedy, Reagan, Wilson, and George H.W. Bush all came in with the support of 20-28% of the US scholars surveyed. I am surprised Truman is rated so highly in this area given the Korean War. The presidents at the bottom of the lists of US scholars? Taft, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Johnson and Ford were listed on no more than 1% of ballots.
The surveys of British and Canadian IR scholars largely matched those of specialists in the US. What differences existed across the participants from other countries? Well, Wilson is rated more highly abroad than he is the US, while George H.W. Bush is rated more negatively abroad than he is in the US. Israelis are huge fans of Richard Nixon. And Kiwis are high on Truman and Wilson (as well as, of course, FDR).
Posted by armand at February 18, 2009 03:33 PM | TrackBack | Posted to The AcademyWell the poll does ask ideology questions and the sample definitely leans left (actually more left than I would have thought given the lack of interest many poli sci types have in domestic politics and the general hawkishness of some parts of the IR subfield) - but I can think of lots of lefties who'd have issues with, say, Reagan and Wilson, and they still rated rather highly.
And really I can't imagine how anyone other than FDR could top this poll. I always find the greatness stuff sort of silly b/c there was Lincoln (kept the country together) and FDR (remade the country and its place in the world) and their work was on such a scale that I don't see how anyone else quite compares.
Of course this poll was about effectiveness and there I've got to say that FDR and Clinton make a lot of sense to rank very highly. I can see Truman and Kennedy's ratings as inflated (in fact I do see them as inflated), but in terms of who carried out effective foreign policies, I don't see how it gets more effective than FDR.
Posted by: Armand at February 19, 2009 09:27 AM | PERMALINK