Political executives have been at the centre of public and scholarly attention long before the inception of modern political science. In the contemporary world, political executives have come to dominate the political stage in many democratic and autocratic regimes. The Oxford Handbook of Political Executives marks the definitive reference work in this field. Edited and written by a team of word-class scholars, it combines substantive stocktaking with setting new agendas for the next generation of political executive research.
This collection of essays draws on writings from mythologists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, and political activists, to present perspectives on the techniques, philosophies, and theories of political leadership throughout history. The forty-three selections offer a broad range of thought and provide a uniquely comprehensive reference.
Local governments throughout the west are undergoing a transformation of their leadership styles and structures. Some countries have abandoned traditional systems of collective or committee based decision-making in favour of Cabinet models or, more radically, a directly-elected executive mayor, while others have strengthened existing mayoral systems. There are a few exceptions to this trend. Based on original research in eleven countries the book assesses these changes in terms of their implications for political accountability, the role of lay politicians, political recruitment, the professionalization of leadership, and relations with the bureaucracy.
In this expanded third edition, renowned scholar Stephen Skowronek, addresses Donald J. Trump’s presidency. Skowronek’s insights have fundamentally altered our understanding of the American presidency. His “political time” thesis has been particularly influential, revealing how presidents reckon with the work of their predecessors, situate their power within recent political events, and assert their authority in the service of change. A classic widely used in courses on the presidency, Skowronek’s book has greatly expanded our understanding of and debates over the politics of leadership. It clarifies the typical political problems that presidents confront in political time, as well as the likely effects of their working through them, and considers contemporary innovations in our political system that bear on the leadership patterns from the more distant past. Drawing out parallels in the politics of leadership between Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt and between James Polk and John Kennedy, it develops a new and revealing perspective on the presidential leadership of Clinton, Bush, Obama, and now Trump. In this third edition Skowronek carefully examines the impact of recent developments in government and politics on traditional leadership postures and their enactment, given the current divided state of the American polity, the impact of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, of a more disciplined and homogeneous Republican party, of conservative advocacy of the “unitary theory” of the executive, and of progressive disillusionment with the presidency as an institution. A provocative review of presidential history, Skowronek’s book brims with fresh insights and opens a window on the institution of the executive office and the workings of the American political system as a whole. Intellectually satisfying for scholars, it also provides an accessible volume for students and general readers interested in the American presidency.
This book provides a philosophically informed, institutionalist account of political leadership. It is rooted in a certain version of the American pragmatist philosophical tradition and privileges the study of institutions as a cause of leadership outcomes. The book adopts a multi-method approach. It includes a laboratory experiment identifying the psychological effects of presidentialism and parliamentarism on leader behavior; a large-n statistical study of the impact of semi-presidentialism on voter choice; an expert survey of president/cabinet conflict in Europe; an analysis of presidential control over cabinet composition in France; and two in-depth case studies of the circumstances surrounding constitutional choice in France and Romania. This book is aimed at scholars and students of political leadership, political institutions, the philosophy of the social sciences, and research methods. Overall, it shows that an institutional account has the potential to generate well-settled beliefs about the causes of leadership outcomes.
A powerful dissection of one of the fundamental problems in American governance today: the clash between presidents determined to redirect the nation through ever-tighter control of administration and an executive branch still organized to promote shared interests in steady hands, due deliberation, and expertise. President Trump pitted himself repeatedly against the institutions and personnel of the executive branch. In the process, two once-obscure concepts came center stage in an eerie faceoff. On one side was the specter of a "Deep State" conspiracyadministrators threatening to thwart the will of the people and undercut the constitutional authority of the president they elected to lead them. On the other side was a raw personalization of presidential power, one that a theory of "the unitary executive" gussied up and allowed to run roughshod over reason and the rule of law. The Deep State and the unitary executive framed every major contest of the Trump presidency. Like phantom twins, they drew each other out. These conflicts are not new. Stephen Skowronek, John A. Dearborn, and Desmond King trace the tensions between presidential power and the depth of the American state back through the decades and forward through the various settlements arrived at in previous eras. Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic is about the breakdown of settlements and the abiding vulnerabilities of a Constitution that gave scant attention to administrative power. Rather than simply dump on Trump, the authors provide a richly historical perspective on the conflicts that rocked his presidency, and they explain why, if left untamed, the phantom twins will continue to pull the American government apart.
A defense of regulatory agencies’ efforts to combine public consultation with bureaucratic expertise to serve the interest of all citizens The statutory delegation of rule-making authority to the executive has recently become a source of controversy. There are guiding models, but none, Susan Rose-Ackerman claims, is a good fit with the needs of regulating in the public interest. Using a cross-national comparison of public policy-making in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, she argues that public participation inside executive rule-making processes is necessary to preserve the legitimacy of regulatory policy-making.
How do political appointees try to gain control of the Washington bureaucracy? How do high-ranking career bureaucrats try to ensure administrative continuity? The answers are sought in this analysis of the relations between appointees and bureaucrats that uses the participants' own words to describe the imperatives they face and the strategies they adopt. Shifting attention away form the well-publicized actions of the President, High Heclo reveals the little-known everyday problems of executive leadership faced by hundreds of appointees throughout the executive branch. But he also makes clear why bureaucrats must deal cautiously with political appointees and with a civil service system that offers few protections for broad-based careers of professional public service. The author contends that even as political leadership has become increasingly bureaucratized, the bureaucracy has become more politicized. Political executives—usually ill-prepared to deal effectively with the bureaucracy—often fail to recognize that the real power of the bureaucracy is not its capacity for disobedience or sabotage but its power to withhold services. Statecraft for political executives consists of getting the changes they want without losing the bureaucratic services they need. Heclo argues further that political executives, government careerists, and the public as well are poorly served by present arrangements for top-level government personnel. In his view, the deficiencies in executive politics will grow worse in the future. Thus he proposes changes that would institute more competent management of presidential appointments, reorganize the administration of the civil service personnel system, and create a new Federal Service of public managers.
As the holders of the only office elected by the entire nation, presidents have long claimed to be sole stewards of the interests of all Americans. Scholars have largely agreed, positing the president as an important counterbalance to the parochial impulses of members of Congress. This supposed fact is often invoked in arguments for concentrating greater power in the executive branch. Douglas L. Kriner and Andrew Reeves challenge this notion and, through an examination of a diverse range of policies from disaster declarations, to base closings, to the allocation of federal spending, show that presidents, like members of Congress, are particularistic. Presidents routinely pursue policies that allocate federal resources in a way that disproportionately benefits their more narrow partisan and electoral constituencies. Though presidents publicly don the mantle of a national representative, in reality they are particularistic politicians who prioritize the needs of certain constituents over others.
With rare exceptions, few large institutions change bosses every two or three years. Yet the U.S. Government has temps on top. American government has 3,000 presidential political appointees and thousands more state and local political appointees, who refer to their in-and-out bosses as 'Christmas help.' Beyond a Government of Strangers is the first book to focus on the men and women who stick around, on the career executives and their own roles in the executive branch. Robert Maranto provides pithy, sage advice on how career bureaucrats can improve tenuous relationships and overcome conflicts with political appointees, especially during presidential transitions, for more effective government from the top down.
