Measuring Partisan Regimes: Elites Tell Us Who Their Reconstructives Are

Stephen Skowronek's partisan regime theory invites challenges concerning how we can measure such regimes, especially if the variable of analysis is “institutional reconstruction” associated with a new president. But if we follow an interpretation by Andrew Polsky and look for cycles of partisan narratives—later candidates praising the accomplishments of a new president—I argue that partisan regime theory can be measured and it provides a straightforward explanation for why a small number of presidents seem to dominate America's political imagination. I suggest a new rationale for and measurement of the crises that are a necessary but insufficient condition for a new narrative regime to begin.