Rethinking the Administrative Presidency

An original and valuable book that extends the literature on the administrative presidency. A must-read.

In this theoretically and empirically sophisticated book, Bill Resh makes important contributions to our understanding of the role of political appointees in advancing presidential policy agendas. His analysis demonstrates that political appointees who approach the career services with distrust will find distrust mirrored back to them. This mutual distrust will undermine the president’s ability to effectively implement administration priorities. Scholars will find Resh’s analysis illuminating, and practitioners will find his insights constructive.

William Resh thinks deeply about how politicians try to control the bureaucracy and what effects these efforts have on government performance. In this innovative book, Resh argues that efforts by elected officials to politicize the bureaucracy reduce trust between appointees and career executives, hinder information sharing, and, ultimately, damage performance. There are few topics more central to democratic governance and with Resh’s work we have a fresh new and important take from a scholar with rare expertise and judgment.

Rethinking the Administrative Presidency constitutes a major scholarly contribution to the fields of bureaucratic and executive politics.  It advances a compelling thesis for understanding how public agencies are able to skillfully perform their administrative duties within a highly politicized executive branch environment.  Resh persuasively shows that both coherent and effective bureaucratic action ensues when the natural chasm that exists between political and career executives is occupied by a combination of interpersonal trust and positive organizational incentives.