[6] Johansson's first monograph, Two Titans: Muldoon, Lange and Leadership was published in 2005 and was launched in Wellington by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.

[9] In 2009, he published his second monograph, The Politics of Possibility: Leadership in Changing Times (see below),[10] and spent the fall semester in Washington, D.C. as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar to Georgetown University.

[12] After completing his residency in Washington, Johansson offered a 2010 analysis that the Barack Obama presidency would be either "a reconstructive era of genuine change and progress, or an unsatisfying pre-emptive presidency, marked by policy frustrations and ineffective tinkering" and that "the potential of reconstructive politics is all that stands in between America and a long slow decline.

One column reflected on things he regretted during his time as chief of staff: he nominated the government's decision to place responsibility for purchasing SeaGuardian drones with the Defence Force rather than the National Emergency Management Agency and reforming, rather than ending, the sport of greyhound racing.

Drawing on the scholarship of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Erwin C. Hargrove, Johansson articulates three types of periods in New Zealand politics: preparation, achievement and consolidation.