Clemson University lecture to examine 'Why Presidents Fail'

Published: November 10, 2011

By Raquel Cobb

CLEMSON — A lecture titled “Why Presidents Fail: Risk and Uncertainty in the White House” will be at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, at the Strom Thurmond Institute. It is presented by the Clemson University political science department and the College of Business and Behavioral Science.

The lecture will be given by Richard M. Pious, Adolph S. and Effie Ochs Chair in History and American Studies and professor of political science at Barnard College, and will focus on the recurrence of presidential failures.

Before joining the Barnard faculty in 1973, Pious taught at Columbia College and at York University in Toronto. His teaching includes courses on American politics, constitutional and public law and political decision-making.

With articles appearing in the Wisconsin Law Review, the Journal of International Affairs, the Journal of Armed Forces and Society, Political Science Quarterly and Presidential Studies Quarterly, Pious has written widely on American politics and the American presidency and is the editor of a 10-volume series of classic editions in public, comparative and international law. He is the author of several books, including “The American Presidency”; “The President, Congress, and the Constitution”; “The War on Terrorism and the Rule of Law”; and “The Young Oxford Companion to the Presidency of the United States.”

Pious' research in comparative and international politics includes work on Quebec and Canadian politics, the transitions from communist to post-communist politics and Taiwanese-American relations. He has been an adviser to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Mission to the United Nations and regularly consults for the Foreign Ministry of Japan.

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