Which government officials leak unauthorized information to the press in Washington?

Every modern president of the United States has been bedeviled by unauthorized leaks of government information to the press. Who is responsible for such leaks? Presidents of the United States have accused civil servants of attempting to undermine them. However, journalists have suggested that the presidents' own political appointees leak more. Using interviews conducted in 2013 with both presidential political appointees and civil servants who worked in public affairs for the U.S. Treasury Department during the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, as well as interviews with reporters with whom the Treasury officials interacted frequently, this case study finds that political appointees and civil servants leak unauthorized information that does not serve the president's interests to the press with roughly the same frequency. The findings shed light on behavior that is typically shrouded in secrecy and call into question the effort by modern U.S. presidents to gain greater control of the federal government by hiring record numbers of political appointees. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experiential Learning and Presidential Management of the U.S. Federal Bureaucracy: Logic and Evidence from Agency Leadership Appointments

Presidents become increasingly effective at managing the bureaucracy because of the information and expertise that they acquire from on‐the‐job experience. In their appointment choices, this theory predicts that presidents become better at reducing information asymmetries incurred from the bureaucracy (Agent Selection Learning), improve the vertical balance of leadership agent traits between top supervisory positions and subordinates directly beneath them (Agent Monitoring Learning), and place a greater relative premium on loyalty in response to horizontal policy conflict between the White House and the Senate (Common Agency Learning). This logic obtains empirical support from the analysis of bureaucratic agent traits for Senate‐confirmed presidential appointees serving in leadership positions covering 39 U.S. federal government agencies from 1977 to 2009. Presidents’ appointment strategies reflect their increasing effectiveness at managing the bureaucracy, thus complementing their increasing reliance on administrative mechanisms to achieve policy objectives as their tenure in office rises.     

Recommendations Forestalled or Forgotten? The National Commission on the Public Service and Presidential Appointments

Nearly two decades after the first Volcker Commission issued its report on the federal public service, the presidential appointment and confirmation process remains long, cumbersome, intensive, and embarrassing. As the evidence presented in this essay suggests, the process may attract people who are motivated more by personal rewards than by the intrinsic value of public service. Although recent administrations have displayed little enthusiasm for reforming the federal appointment process, the best hope for change may reside in future presidents' desire to assert tight political control over executive departments.     

Exploring Regionalism in the Federal District Courts

This study explores regionalism in the appointment and decisionmakingpatterns of federal district judges. We begin with an examinationof the general appointment strategies of Ronald Reagan, JimmyCarter, and other recent presidents. The role of local constraintsin this process is emphasized. Next, the behavior of federaldistrict judges appointed by recent presidents is analyzed bycomparing levels of support for civil rights and civil libertiesclaims in cases decided during the 1977–1985 period. TheReagan appointees' support scores are compared with those ofjudges appointed by Carter and other recent Democratic and Republicanpresidents. Comparisons are made in the nation as a whole andalso across circuits and states. Our findings indicate thatthe Reagan appointees are less supportive of civil rights andliberties claims than judges named to the bench by Carter orother recent Democratic and Republican presidents.     

Rethinking Loyalty and Competence in Presidential Appointments

Studies in presidential appointments, particularly principal-agent models, posit that presidents employ a top-down strategy to control the bureaucracy, one that promotes loyalty over competence. However, many studies have two critical limitations: (1) treating loyalty and competence as binary constructs and (2) focusing only on presidential nomination and Senate confirmation (PAS) appointments. In this article, the authors construct a continuous measure of loyalty and competence to determine how much loyalty or competence an appointee offers a president and examine other appointment tools—Senior Executive Service (SES), Schedule C, and presidential appointments—that allow presidents to influence different levels of the bureaucracy. Findings show that presidents are more likely to reward competence with their PAS and SES appointments. In addition, few appointees score high on both loyalty and competence, explaining why presidents generally must make a trade-off between loyalty and competence.     

The Institutionalist: A Conversation with Hugh Heclo

This interview marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of Hugh Heclo's classic, A Government of Strangers: Executive Politics in Washington. This engaging conversation touches on such wide-ranging themes as Heclo's early mentorship by Aaron Wildavsky; his nurturing apprenticeship at the Brookings Institution, leading to the publication of A Government of Strangers; the increasingly intense partisanship and schism within the executive branch between career federal bureaucrats and political appointees; the conduct of presidential administrations as never-ending political marketing campaigns; the cynical harnessing of religion in the service of policy objectives; public service and institutional commitment; and the need for political leadership to engage the public honestly and responsibly on matters of fiscal concern.     

Presidential personnel innovation for Presidential appointees in Korea: toward an institutional Presidency

Most presidents may come to realise that a successful individual, gifted though he may be, cannot do everything himself. The president must be assisted by a capable staff and trusted advisors. They are key to policy effectiveness. Surprisingly, in Korea, the past record of presidential performances in these respects has been less than exemplary. Under the current incumbency President Roh (2003–2008), there is accordingly growing public expectation that improvements might take place in his nascent administration. Accordingly, this article assesses the personnel problems of Presidential appointees in the previous as well as the current administration. After a brief but critical examination of the personnel selection system, it considers the ongoing efforts to undertake reform and its innovative direction. In conclusion, it observes that whilst the personnel system for merit‐based civil servants is reasonably well established in the Korean government, the presidential personnel system for political appointments is seriously underdeveloped. The author accordingly suggests some improvements of the system for ‘spoils‐based’ appointees. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Presidents and Patronage

To what extent do presidents select appointees based upon campaign experience and connections? The answer to this question has important implications for our understanding of presidential management and political leadership. This article presents a theory explaining where presidents place different types of appointees and why, focusing on differences in ideology, competence, and non‐policy patronage benefits among potential appointees. We develop a formal model and test its implications with new data on 1,307 persons appointed in the first six months of the Obama administration. The empirical results broadly support the theory, suggesting that President Obama was more likely to place appointees selected for non‐policy patronage reasons in agencies off his agenda, in agencies that shared his policy views, and where appointees are least able to affect agency performance. We conclude that patronage continues to play an important role in American politics, with important consequences for campaigns, presidential politics, and governance.     

What price the court of St. James? Political influences on ambassadorial postings of the United States of America

This paper explores the appointment of career diplomats and political appointees to ambassadorial positions. We present models of the strategic interaction of political donors and presidential candidates, which predicts that donations will match the quality of diplomatic posting granted by the candidate. We test this prediction and confirm it for four presidential terms representing two presidents and 764 diplomatic postings over the 2000 to 2013 period. This allows for the generation of a price list associated with a range of desirable diplomatic posts. This paper provides evidence in support of the proposition that ambassadorships, in locations that are deemed desirable such as Western Europe, are awarded as a form of patronage in return for campaign contributions.     

Implementing Presidential Policy Agendas Administratively: A View from the Inside

Drawing on his experience in a variety of positions over 40 years, the author details a wide range of variables that are involved in implementing presidential policy, including (1) the nature, origin, and validity of the presidential policy agendas and how they are communicated; (2) the background, experience, and relationships of the appointee; (3) the internal agency context; and (4) the larger political and social context. The author concludes that the large number of variables makes it very difficult—if not impossible—to produce a coherent, useful set of guidelines for appointees that will have utility across the board. Rather, implementation often requires individually nuanced responses. At the same time, the author concludes that the documented experiences of appointees in similar circumstances can serve as useful reference points for the future.     

Appointment Delay for Vacancies on the Federal Communications Commission

Confirmation politics for judicial appointees is an exhaustively studied phenomenon, but the politics of appointment for independent agencies is less well understood, because nominees are very rarely rejected and the Senate fails even to hold a recorded vote for most appointees. However, alternative evidence of conflict between the president and the Senate is available: the length of time it takes to fill a vacancy on a board or commission. An empirical assessment of FCC vacancies, based on an exponential regression model of vacancy duration, demonstrates that statutory restrictions on the partisanship of the board significantly deteriorate the efficiency of the appointment process. In addition, the appointment of minorities (though not of women) occurs only after unusually drawn‐out appointments. A straightforward test of whether divided government leads to extended vacancies turns up negative.     

Seat-vote curves, loyalty effects and the provincial distribution of Canadian government spending

Federal government spending in the Canadian provinces for 1962–2002 is examined with emphasis on the role of seat-vote elasticities in majoritarian electoral systems. Fixed effects regressions establish that per capita federal spending in a province increases with political competition, as measured by provincial seat-vote elasticities, and with loyalty to the federal government as measured by the degree of provincial support for the federal government. However, too much loyalty can be counter-productive because very loyal provinces are uncompetitive with low seat-vote elasticities.     

Reducing the Adversarial Burden on Presidential Appointees: Feasible Strategies for Fixing the Presidential Appointments Process

Can the current presidential appointments process be improved? This essay highlights three kinds of problems: inexperienced appointees, a lengthening process, and tedious and adversarial inquiry. While the essay side‐steps trying to affect the prerogatives of institutions involved in the tussle over appointments, it concentrates on improving the support of presidential personnel operations and the process of inquiry that nominees face, and it identifies patterns of repetitiveness among the roughly 2,800 details that a nominee must provide in responding to some 295 individual questions in nine categories. The most adversarial and tedious categories of inquiry include identifying personal background, reporting on criminal entanglements, and assaying potential conflicts of interest. Five strategies are identified for better matching the needed experience in the White House to the demands of presidential personnel. These changes would indirectly shorten the nomination and confirmation process, and the author makes three important recommendations for structuring inquiry that could reduce the adversarial burden on nominees by nearly a third.     

A Comment on "The Great Unraveling: Federal Budgeting, 1998–2006"

To declare that the federal budgetary process is in utter shambles based principally on an analysis of a six-year interval during a single presidential administration, as Professor Irene Rubin does in the preceding article, is unfair to history and misleading. Drawing on significant budgetary experience as a U.S. Senate staff member, the author of this essay argues that (1) the contributions of emergency appropriations and earmarks to the federal budgetary imbalance are overstated, (2) the goal of perpetual budgetary balance is unsound policy, and (3) budgets—inevitably the result of a political process—are artifacts reflecting societal priorities at a given point in time.     

美国文官制度的变革与思考

美国文官制度经历了从政党分肥制到现代功绩制的深刻变革，至1978年，卡特政府创建了高级文官制度，在政务官之下、普通文官之上设置高级文官阶层。高级文官作为连接政务官和普通文官的桥梁和纽带，突破了政治与行政的界限，将政治家和官僚的角色融为一体，扮演着既是领导者，又是管理者的角色，在联邦政府中起着承上启下的作用，全面提升了政府的政治和技术回应性。但高级文官中政治任命的非常任高级文官更换频繁，与竞争晋升的常任高级文官和普通文官之间，又产生了新的矛盾和冲突，造成政府优秀人才的流失。从历史的角度，认真总结美国文官制度变革的经验与教训，对于我国公务员制度建设，特别是高级公务员制度建设，具有重要意义。     

Federalism in the 2000 Presidential Election

Federalism was not an explicitly prominent feature of the 2000presidential election, but it exerted significant influencein shaping the political landscape as well as the candidates'positions on the role and purposes of the federal government.America's federal system created powerful undercurrents thatinfluenced the selection of the two major presidential candidates,the campaign issues, and the candidates' messages. At the sametime, George W. Bush and Albert Gore differed considerably intheir answers to how the United States' federal system shouldfunction and the objectives it should seek. Bush favored a federalgovernment that promotes economic opportunity through a marketplaceand allows state and local governments to determine their ownmoral and policy objectives. Gore preferred a national commonwealth,where the federal government determines the moral objectivesand the states cooperate to achieve those objectives.     

Party patronage in contemporary democracies: Results from an expert survey in 22 countries from five regions

This Research Note presents a new dataset of party patronage in 22 countries from five regions. The data was collected using the same methodology to compare patterns of patronage within countries, across countries and across world regions that are usually studied separately. The Note addresses three research questions that are at the centre of debates on party patronage, which is understood as the power of political parties to make appointments to the public and semi‐public sector: the scope of patronage, the underlying motivations and the criteria on the basis of which appointees are selected. The exploration of the dataset shows that party patronage is, to a different degree, widespread across all regions. The data further shows differences between policy areas, types of institutions such as government ministries, agencies and state‐owned enterprises, and higher, middle and lower ranks of the bureaucracy. It is demonstrated that the political control of policy making and implementation is the most common motivation for making political appointments. However, in countries with a large scope of patronage, appointments serve the purpose of both political control and rewarding supporters in exchange for votes and services. Finally, the data shows that parties prefer to select appointees who are characterised by political and personal loyalty as well as professional competence.     

Recasting Federalism in Mexico

Decentralization of political power and administrative decision-makingduring the last three presidential administrations (1982–2000)has recast federalism in Mexico and sharply altered intergovernmentalrelations between the levels of government and between the principalbranches. Although decentralization cannot be equated conceptuallywith federalism, their relationship is extremely tight in Mexico.The shift toward a more decentralized regime is an outcome offederal government policies and political liberalization. Politicalpluralism and the demise of centralism were further intensifiedby the 1997 midterm elections. The rapidly changing politicalclimate in Mexico has increasingly demanded that the reallocationof power be genuine, that is, that power be shared not onlyvertically, with the various levels of government, but alsohorizontally, with the other branches as well.     

NATIONAL PROJECTS IN CIVILIAN TECHNOLOGY

National projects in civilian technology initiated and implemented by the federal government generally cost in excess o f $1 billion and often extend beyond the political lifetime of a particular presidential administration. The authors explore the consequences of the U.S. political and administrative system on government-sponsored technology development by examining four such national projects: the SST, civilian nuclear power, synfuels, and the supercomputer. They relate the absence of planning and often tortuous course that characterizes these cases to the functioning–for better or worse–of American pluralistic politics.     

Trump's FEMA administrator appointment: The pick he got correct

Donald Trump has made many controversial appointments since taking the office of President of the United States of America. Many of his appointees have had little to no experience in their substantive area. Some even argue that many of his appointees received their jobs from patronage. One glaring exception is Brock Long's appointment as Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Long served as the Director of the Alabama Emergency Agency, the state level equivalent of FEMA. Given that he is an experience public servant, Long may prove to be of the better appointments made by President Trump.