Obama's Fractured Legacy: The Politics and Policies of an Embattled Presidency

Featuring a range of experts on the American presidency, this book offers both European and American perspectives on both the successes and failures of President Obama’s tenure in the White House. Focusing primarily on domestic policy, these essays explain why Obama's widely anticipated moment of change did not fully materialise. The Obama presidency navigated partisan and institutional obstacles, but quickly lost its 2008 momentum. These developments illustrate the weakening of the institutional Presidency in a larger context of polarised politics. Many of the fault lines of American society were thus left largely unaddressed, paving the way for the Trump campaign in 2016.