Title: What is a Mandate? - Definition & Examples - Social Science Class [2021 Video] | Study.com
Headings: What is a Mandate? - Definition & Examples
What is a Mandate? - Definition & Examples
Lesson Transcript
Mandates: When Winning Might Not Be Enough
When Is a Mandate Really a Mandate?
Roosevelt's Mandate
Reagan's Mandate
Truman's Mandate
Obama's Mandate
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Content: This form of legitimacy is considered quite natural in well-established political systems. Once you have legitimacy with the population, the outcomes of an election can be subject to the idea of a mandate. This is where things get decidedly vague, though, since it's not entirely clear that just 'winning' the election is enough to claim a mandate. The basic idea of a mandate is that the voters in a democracy have signaled very clearly that they support what a given candidate is saying he or she will do; or, if the candidate is an incumbent, approving of what he or she has already accomplished. So, even if you have won the election, have you won by enough? Roosevelt's Mandate
The case of Franklin Roosevelt is instructive here. Roosevelt ran and won the U.S. presidency in 1932 and immediately proposed a New Deal, a massive series of government programs in order to end the Great Depression. Some of the proposals were successful, some less so; but when he stood for reelection in 1936, Roosevelt put the New Deal and what he had done thus far front and center in his campaign.