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Biden's first hundred days in office were marked by significant policy-changes, for example in the areas of the COVID-19 crisis management, environmental and anti-discrimination policies. From the beginning, the new administration sought to highlight the contrast to its predecessor - in style, rhetoric, and policy. This seems to confirm a trend in US politics: The ideological pendulum keeps swinging. While Trump's policies shifted towards the right, the pendulum under Biden is now swinging back to the political spectrum's left. Yet, there are also several continuities. For example, regarding the increasing use of unilateral instruments of policy-making, in terms of national interests on the global stage, and in the area of immigration policies, where progressive campaign promises remain unfulfilled. Partisan politics also persist. The American Rescue Plan, Biden's signature legislation during his first hundred days in office, could not attract bipartisan support. At the same time, tensions within the Democratic Party reveal frictions between progressives and moderates, which may shape the party's course, in particular in view of slim majorities in the Senate.

Based on an original dataset of 100 important pieces of legislation passed during the three presidencies of William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack H. Obama (1992-2013), this study explores two sets of questions: (1) How do presidents influence legislators in Congress in the legislative arena, and what factors have an effect on the legislative strategies presidents choose? (2) How successful are presidents in getting their policy positions enacted into law, and what configurations of institutional and actor-centered conditions determine presidential legislative success? The analyses show that in an hyper-polarized environment, presidents usually have to fight an uphill-battle in the legislative arena, getting more involved if they face less favorable contexts and the odds are against them. Moreover, the analyses suggest that there is no silver-bullet approach for presidents' legislative success. Instead, multiple patterns of success exist as presidents - depending on the institutional and public environment - can resort to different combinations of actions in order to see their preferred policy outcomes enacted.

Zur politischen Elite sind all jene Personen zu zählen, die aufgrund ihrer strategischen Position in der Lage sind, den politischen Willensbildungs- und Entscheidungsprozeß direkt, substantiell und regelmäßig zu beeinflussen. Der Beitrag definiert für hier drei Kreise: Im Zentrum stehen die vom Volk gewählten Amtsträger der nationalen Ebene - Mitglieder des Repräsentantenhauses und des Senats sowie der Vizepräsident. Zum engeren Kreis gehören darüber hinaus das Kabinett, die Mitarbeiterstäbe im Kongress und in der Administration, die oberste Ebene der Verwaltung sowie die Bundesrichter. Im erweiterten Kreis der politischen Elite befinden sich die Gouverneure der Einzelstaaten und die Bürgermeister der größeren Städte wie z. B. New York. Diesem erweiterten Bereich werden auch die Vertreter der einflussreichen Interessengruppen und Medien, der größeren Unternehmen und Gewerkschaften, die Mitarbeiter der verschiedenen policy planning groups und think tanks sowie hochrangige Militärs zugerechnet. Im Mittelpunkt der US-Elitenforschung steht die Frage "Wer regiert Amerika?". Während Vertreter der pluralistischen Theorien die amerikanische Elitenstruktur als weitgehend offen und fragmentiert begreifen, betont der power elite approach die Geschlossenheit und Integration der nationalen Führungsschicht. In der Realität sind jedoch innerhalb der Elitenstruktur sowohl Merkmale der Fragmentierung als auch der Integration zu beobachten. (ICA2)

Why don't citizens give governments credit when they deliver on electoral pledges? This article develops an original analytical framework that addresses this important but under-researched question. It focuses on the concept of 'credit claiming', which is the opposite of 'blame shifting', and draws together existing research to identify a number of significant hurdles that governments must overcome in order to gain recognition for achievements. It highlights the challenges which policymakers face in communicating with citizens in an increasingly mediatised public sphere, and the extent to which their credit claiming efforts rely on the media as a 'transmission belt'. It concludes that in liberal democracies governments are fighting an uphill battle to gain citizens' support and secure trust in broader democratic institutions and the political system as a whole.