Goals of this exercise

• Illustrate the historical decline of Presidential control over executive branch appointments and personnel.
• Demonstrate how rule and procedural changes in executive branch hiring decisions caused this lose of control over time.
• Examine how a decline in presidential control in executive hiring might affect presidential control over bureaucracy.

Political Appointment vs. Merit Selection in the Executive Branch

Examining Rationality Principle #1

Principle #1: All political behavior has a purpose. All political actors engage in instrumental acts designed to further their individual goals.

The goals of bureaucrats and the President differ in important respects.

For the president, the task of democratic control of the bureaucracy is to impose his goals on the bureaucracy to the extent possible.

The conflict of these goals leads to a struggle over autonomy between the President and his political appointees on the one hand and merit-protected bureaucrats on the other hand.

Examining Rationality Principle #3

Principle #4: Political Outcomes are the products of individual preferences and institutional procedures.

The rules and procedures by which federal employees are selected (i.e., rules promoting a “spoils system” vs. rules promoting a “merit system”) matter in determining whether the President or the bureaucracy wins in the struggle over autonomy.

When the President has greater control over selecting bureaucrats, he is more likely able to impose his preferences over bureaucrats. When bureaucrats owe their position only to their “merit” and are insulated from political pressure, they have greater autonomy to pursue their own goals.

Historical Stages of Appointment

Stage 1: “Spoils system” was originally instituted as a democratic reform during the Jacksonian era to provide for a “rotation in office” that would make national government more representative of the rest of the country.

Stage 2: Nepotism, favoritism, and corruption of the spoils system leads to calls for yet more reform. This time reformers want to institute a civil service system that, if it would make the government less representative, it would also make the government more professional.

Stage 3: The Pendleton Act (1883) institutes civil service (or merit) system in some national government hiring.

Stage 4: From end of the 19th century to 1960s, more and more of national government employees are selected by merit.

Stage 5: In attempts to once again gain greater democratic and political control over the federal bureaucracy, after the 1970s new politically appointed positions are increasingly added to the federal workforce.

Analyzing Executive Appointments

Examining the graph and the various stages (1-5) of appointment politics, answer the following questions:
The Advent of Merit-Selection

Question 1: What new “rule” caused the jump in the percentage of merit-selected federal employees between 1881 and 1891?

Question 2: What happened to merit selection between 1881 and 1921?

Question 3: How did these changes in rules and procedures allow simultaneously for greater bureaucratic autonomy in the pursuit of their goals and a decline in the President’s ability to control the bureaucracy?

Increasing Presidential Control

• In the 1960s, there was a significant increase in the number of federal employees designated as Senior Executive Service (SES) positions who were politically appointed rather than merit-selected.
• Throughout much of the 20th century, Presidents expanded the politically appointed White House staff and increasingly turned to their staff rather than the Cabinet or the bureaucracy for policy development and some implementation.

One Step Further

Examining the figure and the various stages (1-5) of appointment politics, answer the following questions (continued):
Increasing Presidential Control

Question 4: What is the President’s likely aim in sprinkling SES personnel throughout the federal bureaucracy?

Question 5: What advantages accrue to the President in his struggle with the bureaucracy for autonomy by increasingly using the White House Staff rather than the merit-selected bureaucracy?

Question 6: In what ways do these changes amount to at least a partial return of the spoils system?

Citations

• Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics in American Politics 5th edition (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1995);
• Francis E. Rourke, “Presidentializing the Bureaucracy: From Kennedy to Reagan.” In James P. Pfiffner, ed., The Managerial Presidency (Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1991);
• Sidney Milkis, The President and the Parties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).