TY - JOUR
T1 - The Allocation of Excepted Political Positions
T2 - What and Whose Executive Priorities Do They Serve?
AU - West, William F.
AU - Cheon, Ohbet
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 American University, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/9/2
Y1 - 2019/9/2
N2 - Scholars have only begun to examine the roles played by non-career SES and Schedule C personnel in managing the bureaucracy. This, despite the fact that these individuals help to establish, communicate, and implement policy, and despite the broad discretion presidential administrations have in appointing them, defining their duties, and allocating their positions across the federal government. As an effort to redress this neglect, we first provide an overview of what lower-level political personnel do and of the processes and constraints that determine how they are distributed. We then examine how changes in presidential administration have affected the allocation of political SES and Schedule C positions across departments. Although dramatic infusions of these personnel into some agencies can be tied to policy objectives, they appear to be idiosyncratic and driven more by the preferences of agency leaders than by the White House. As such, they provide little support for positive theories that frame the administrative presidency in terms of centralized strategic planning.
AB - Scholars have only begun to examine the roles played by non-career SES and Schedule C personnel in managing the bureaucracy. This, despite the fact that these individuals help to establish, communicate, and implement policy, and despite the broad discretion presidential administrations have in appointing them, defining their duties, and allocating their positions across the federal government. As an effort to redress this neglect, we first provide an overview of what lower-level political personnel do and of the processes and constraints that determine how they are distributed. We then examine how changes in presidential administration have affected the allocation of political SES and Schedule C positions across departments. Although dramatic infusions of these personnel into some agencies can be tied to policy objectives, they appear to be idiosyncratic and driven more by the preferences of agency leaders than by the White House. As such, they provide little support for positive theories that frame the administrative presidency in terms of centralized strategic planning.
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U2 - 10.1080/07343469.2019.1616334
DO - 10.1080/07343469.2019.1616334
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85068142663
VL - 46
SP - 446
EP - 470
JO - Congress and the Presidency
JF - Congress and the Presidency
SN - 0734-3469
IS - 3
ER -