Continuity, Competence, and the Succession of Senate‐Confirmed Agency Appointees, 1989‐2009

摘要: The presidential power to appoint senior government officials has evolved from a few phrases in the second paragraph of section Article II U.S. Constitution into an unwieldy and opaque system rules expectations. "The appointment operates framework studied ambiguity," Louis Fisher observes, developing through generations "imaginative accommodations between executive legislative branches" (1985, 59). Demands for broad-based reform occasionally take hold, most recently Vacancies Reform Act 1998, which sought reassert Senate's advise consent by placing strict (though sometimes neglected) limitations on service "acting" appointee (GAO 2003; Stayn 2001). Yet, as case controversy over interim attorneys Department Justice, system's "studied ambiguity" remains unyielding. (1) Its complexity is rooted tensions inherent administration: drive political control policy competence; dynamics issue networks domains; priorities ambitions politicians, interest groups, administrators. Recognizing that efforts fix are inevitable is, some basic respects, unfixable, this article aims simply provide measure clarity. We describe one prominent feature agency politics--continuity--based turnover, tenure, position vacancies. (2) develop series snapshots time, illuminating succession top-tier appointees--presidentially appointed Senate confirmed (PAS)--during administrations George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, January 20, 1989 2009. Using new data set drawn Office Personnel Management, Government Accountability Office, variety published sources, we analyze roughly 2,200 appointments across three presidencies, describing patterns tenure vacancies form contours administrative presidency. (3) consider research linking continuity performance conclude reflecting nature relationship practice administration. More than decades ago, Hugh Heclo's A Strangers (1977) depicted America's transient governing elite--the presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed administrators populating upper echelons federal agencies--as role appointees shifted with expanding reach institutional Heclo observed transience among forms stark, uneasy contrast senior-level career civil servants, often at culmination successful careers. He saw relations careerists shifting under weight thickening bureaucracies politicization administration, central themes contemporary presidency public administration scholarship (Goodsell 2006; Light 1995; Peters Pierre 2004). Richard Nathan's (1983) Terry Moe's 1990, 1993) politicized have inspired generation scholars who embraced bureaucracy means fulfill Hamiltonian visions energetic executive. (4) Critics politicization, contrast, stress value competence, contending agencies put state's capacity expertise and, ultimately, risk (Lane 1996; Williams 1990). Most thinking about posits trade-off competence (Bawn Bertelli Feldman 2007; Epstein O'Halloran 1999; Miller 2005). This control-competence analytically useful, framing critical tension bureaucratic structure (Waldo 1948; Weber 1958). …