Richard Barberio is Associate Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York's College at Oneonta, USA. He writes widely and teaches on American political institutions and processes, and is the author of The Politics of Public Policy (2014).
Chapter 1: The Role of Scandal in American Politics
1. Introduction
2. Why Scandal?
3. Evaluating the Scandals
5. The Plan for the Book
1. The Presidential Advantage
2. Public Responses to Presidential Scandals
3. Scandal Types
b. Financial Scandals
c. Power Scandals
4. Strategies of Presidential Scandal Management
a. Stonewalling
b. Cooperation and Cooperative Stonewalling
c. The Third Strategy: Misdirection
Chapter 3: Nixon and Watergate
1. Introduction
2. The Antecedents of Watergate: Nixon's Rise to Power through Crisis
4. Watergate: From Break-in to Cover-up
5. Contemplating a Backfire: The Benefits and Costs of a Democratic Counter Scandal
6. Outcomes
Chapter 4: The Reagan Administration and Iran-Contra
1. Introduction
2. The Origins of Iran-Contra
3. The Cover-up
4. Potential Benefits of a Backfire to Manage Scandal
5. Evidence for the use of a Backfire
6. Outcomes
Chapter 5: Clinton and the Lewinsky Affair
1. Introduction
2. From Whitewater to Lewinsky
3. The Initial Response - To Attack or Not?
4. The Cover-up
5. Managing the Scandal
7. The Campaign to Discredit Lewinsky
8. Discussion
9. Applying the Framework
Chapter 6: President Trump: The Conquest of Backfire Scandal Management
1. Introduction
2. A Roadmap of Grievances
3. Russia and the Mueller Report
4. Ukraine and the "Perfect Phone Call"
5. Potential Benefits of a Backfire to Manage Scandal
6. Evidence for the use of a Backfire
Chapter 7: Comparing the Cases
1. Introduction
2. Summarizing the Cases
a. Clinton
b. Nixon
d. Trump
3. Thinking Counterfactually: What If?
4. Why Not? The "Soft Guardrails" of Democracy
5. The Antecedents of Backfire Politics: Polarization
7. The Need for a Receptive Audience
8. What If? Putting the Backfire Puzzle Together
9. Summary
Chapter 8: Conclusions
1. Introduction
3. Opportunity for Presidential Choice
4. A Projection of Future Trends
5. Backfires in a Constitutional Democracy