The state of the academic study of the American presidency has been under constant review for the past 20 years. Attention was originally directed to deficiencies in the level of empirical knowledge about the presidency, but this was soon overtaken by greater concern with the methodological, conceptual, and theoretical underpinnings of presidency scholarship. Significant advances have now been made in the epistemology of presidency scholarship. This paper returns to the earlier concern and identifies the structural constraints encountered by researchers in this field and the major areas of scholarly neglect. It seeks to shift further discussion about the state of presidency research to the fundamental causes of that neglect.
