Emerging from the Shadows: Vice Presidential Influence in the Modern Era (SUNY series on the Presidency: Contemporary Issues)

Although once derided as an insignificant office, the vice presidency in the last forty years has witnessed an increase in stature, prominence, and influence. Emerging from the Shadows focuses on explaining variation in vice presidential influence over time with an assumption that all vice presidents in the modern era have the capacity to exercise influence. This study is the first of its kind to ascertain the true nature of vice-presidential influence and the consequences of changing interpersonal, situational, institutional, and electoral dynamics on that influence using in-depth interviews and archival research. These four dynamics, as Richard M. Yon demonstrates, provide a model by which to understand the fluidity of vice-presidential influence, which in turn enables more precise analysis of the vice presidencies of Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, George H. W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and Joe Biden.

Richard M. Yon is Associate Professor of Political Science at the United States Military Academy at West Point.