MEASURING THE PRESIDENTS PROFESSIONAL REPUTATION

Professional reputation, unlike other components of Neustadt's preside ntial power, has received little scholarly attention, The president's professional reputation is the assessment of his performance in office by the Washington community. According to Neustadt, president's profe ssional reputation can be determined by reviewing judgments of his per formance by those who collect, synthesize, and disseminate elite opini on. We measure professional reputation based on the length and valence of nearly 3,600 editorials and opinion-editorials in The New York Tim es from 1961 to 1992. We compare these measures to previous operationa lizations of the concept and test for convergent and discriminant crit erion validity. This method provides a valid operationalization of Neu stadt's concept of professional reputation, thus allowing for its incl usion in more fully specified models of presidential power.