The Strategy of Campaigning: Lessons from Ronald Reagan & Boris Yeltsin

by Kiron K. Skinner, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Serhiy Kudelia

The Strategy of Campaigning explores the political careers of Ronald Reagan and Boris Yeltsin, two of the most galvanizing and often controversial political figures of our time. Both men overcame defeat early in their political careers and rose to the highest elected offices in their respective countries.

 

The authors demonstrate how and why Reagan and Yeltsin succeeded in their political aspirations, despite—or perhaps because of—their apparent “policy extremism”: that is, their advocacy of policy positions far from the mainstream. The book analyzes the viability of policy extremism as a political strategy that enables candidates to forge new coalitions and outflank conventional political allegiances.







Kiron K. Skinner is Associate Professor of International Relations and Political Science at Carnegie Mellon University, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a member of the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel and the National Security Education Board.
 
Serhiy Kudelia is Lecturer of Politics at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine and advisor to Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine.
 Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is Julius Silver Professor and Director of the Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy at New York University and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

 

Condoleezza Rice is on a leave of absence from Stanford University, where she was a Professor of Political Science and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is currently serving as U.S. Secretary of State.

Genres: Politics

338 pages, Hardcover

First published August 22, 2007

About the author

Kiron Kanina Skinner is an American political scientist. She was Director of Policy Planning at the United States Department of State in the first Trump administration. Skinner is presently the Taube Professor of International Relations and Politics at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, where she teaches graduate courses in national security and public leadership. Prior to that, she was the Taube Professor of International Relations and Politics at Carnegie Mellon University, and the founding director of the Institute for Politics and Strategy and associated centers at the university. She is also the W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. After leaving the Department of State, she returned to her position at Carnegie Mellon University until stepping down in 2021.
She co-authored two books on Ronald Reagan: In His Own Hand (2001) and Reagan, a Life in Letters (2003), which were New York Times bestsellers. In 2005, Skinner was appointed by President George W. Bush to a term on the National Security Education Board.