Week 12 Flashcards
Kessel
Try to make sense of the concept of “dual adaptation” in this context and get a feel for the organization of the executive branch, especially the EOP and the White House itself.
-What distinguishes the presidency is dual adaptation, adapting to the president’s work style within the White House while simultaneously adapting to the work styles of relevant clienteles outside the White House
-The new staff must adapt to the needs of the president and to the institutions outside the white house ( Staff changes based on the presidential style)
- Believes truman was the one
- National security act of 1947
Hoover Commission with goals of promoting “economy, efficiency, and improved
service
- Kessel says the names change of the office but the functions that they serce stay the same ( A lot stays the same)
Burke
End of FDR: Brownlow committee recs informed reorganization act of 1937, established the EOP
-As the top levels of the White House staff have gained authority and political visibility, the rest of the staff has taken on the character of a bureaucratic organization. Among its bureaucratic characteristics are complex work routines, which often stifle originality and reduce differences on policy to their lowest
common denominator
Over time the instituional presidency settled into now
EOP (~2,500; PA, PAS)
* Subsumes WHO (~500; PA)
Institutionalize
* Complex (size, specialization, need for coordination)
* Differentiation from environment – serve the president, espec. In policy
making (and not beholden to other interests)
Milkins
-Roosevelt and Johnson had greatly diminished his partisan capital in pursuit of programmatic innovation.
-Considering that the New Deal and Great Society were established by replacing traditional party politics with administration, it is not surprising that when a conservative challenge to liberal reform emerged, it entailed the creation of a conservative “administrative presidency.
-The experience of the Reagan administration suggested how the relationship between the president and the party could be mutually beneficial.
A strong Republican Party provided Reagan with the support of a formidable institution, solidifying his personal popularity and facilitating support for his program in Congress.
Shift to party … What limits a president’s
ability …
Organizational partys, congress, sense of party at the mass level To lead their own party?
Bad if image of too partisan
Variation in policy within the political party
Difference in constituency and calendars
Local party (elected officials and party bosses) In state
What’s the overtime pattern w/ respect to the institutional presidency
What’s the upshot of this for where power resides – both v. Congress and
within the Executive Branch?
And (according to Burke) what is the attendant challenge this poses for the
president? And (brainstorm) what are the options to deal with this
challenge?
Lewis and Moe
five different challenges to presidential control of the bureaucracy.
Presidential control:
Appointed positions
Presidents had the authority to add jobs to the merit
system and at the end of their terms, often “blanketed in” their political appointees, ensuring that the latter could not be fired by the next president.
Expand number of appointees with executive orders
Personnel: Civil service reform
-The career civil service, whose members are
neither hired nor fired by presidents, is obviously a major impediment to presidential leadership of the bureaucracy
The institutional presidency
a dedicated White House staff emerged both to recruit appointees and to manage the patronage pressures on each new administration.
Since then, presidents (Trump aside) have increasingly professionalized and institutionalized the personnel process
President fills top executive positions but it has now taken influence over mostly al appointed positions
Congress has not tried to limit the president’s institutional capacity
Senate limits their power a bit with confirmations
