The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, many questioned whether the large number of political appointees in the Federal Emergency Management Agency contributed to the agency's poor handling of the catastrophe. This book examines how and why Presidents use political appointees and how their choices impact government performance - for better or worse.

Reviews

Winner of the 2009 Richard E. Neustadt Award for the best 2008 book on the U.S. Presidency, Presidency Research Section of the American Political Science Association Winner of the 2008 Herbert Simon Award for the Best Book, Public Administration Section of the American Political Science Association Honorable Mention for the The Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize, 2009, International Political Science Association's Research Committee on the Structure of Governance One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009 "[Lewis] delves into an assessment of the pros and cons of the process through a systematic and balanced examination of the available evidence. The result is impressive: a careful, nuanced, and thoughtful analysis of a major part of government that few citizens know much about. Lewis reminds us that the tension between competent and loyal government employees is nearly as old as the United States itself."--Karen Hult, Democracy Journal "This book is a major scholarly advance for understanding both the conditions under which presidents choose to politicize the bureaucracy and their choices' ramifications for effective government."--M.E. Bailey, Choice "Lewis's work contributes to a growing literature on the relationship of the bureaucracy to the rest of the political system... The most valuable contribution of The Politics of Presidential Appointments, however, is its description of the Byzantine system of presidential appointments and the clarity with which it presents the trade-offs between presidential control and bureaucratic competence."--Patrick Roberts, Presidential Studies Quarterly "This is certainly the best book on appointments so far, and one that will come to define how we write books on the presidency that attempt to meld theory and evidence... The Politics of Presidential Appointments will provide the starting point, and rightfully so."--Andrew B. Whitford, Perspectives on Politics "Every now and again, a book comes along that challenges not only what you think about a topic, but how you and everyone else you know go about studying it. David Lewis's latest offering is exactly such a book... This book ... represents a genuinely new age of empirical work on the executive branch, and it sets the standard by which all future work on the topic will be measured."--William Howell, Political Science Quarterly

Author Bio

David E. Lewis is assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design".