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Authors: Judith E. Michaels
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(Newland 1983, 2).
Following Nixon's lead, Reagan's administrative strategy advanced beyond this somewhat passive strategy to an active one, vis-à-vis the careerists:
Reagan ultimately went ahead to make explicit political use of the Senior Executive Service, usually by removing career officials from important slots and filling them with partisans. He also used reductions in force as a legal means of eliminating whole bureaucratic units staffed by careerists. This was done systematically, in the interests of presidential control and successful pursuit of the Reagan agenda. As a strategy for infiltrating the bureaucracy, it went way beyond anything Nixon had attempted. Yet it met with no opposition. (Moe 1991, 151)
Meanwhile, the numbers of limited-term political executive and Schedule C positions had also grown, more so at some agencies than at others. Like Eisenhower, who in 1953 created the political Schedule C positions to move partisans into the lower reaches of the bureaucracy, Reagan also used these positions to place loyalists where he hoped they could
Page 37
actually run the agencies. "The effect of this is that by August 1983 the number of Schedule C appointments exceeded the total number of Carter's Schedule Cs during his four-year term" (Salamon and Abramson 1984, 46).
This administrative presidency ploy meant not just the strategic placement of ideological soul mates but encouragement for them to advance policy objectives through use of their administrative power. Using this gambit, the PASs killed pending regulations left over from the final days of the Carter administration and slowed the issuance of new ones through executive orders and OMB procedures. They initiated "severe budget cuts, staff reductions, and a general easing of regulatory vigor," which led to reduced regulatory enforcement actions in many areas. They also "reinterpreted the conduct of agency business in accord with the administration's philosophy . . . of cooperation with business rather than confrontation in achieving regulatory compliance" (ibid., 47).
What was the ultimate result of the administrative presidency as practiced by the Reagan Republicans? Heclo describes the American system resulting from the Republican's version of the administrative presidency as being "hollow at the center" (Ingraham and Ban 1988, 12). Mark Goldstein, a staff member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, in a personal interview extended Heclo's theory to the government as a whole: "hollow government" was the result of twelve years of Republican administration. Government after the Republicans had neither the resources nor the management expertise to accomplish the tasks it had been given. The government had been hollowed out-the shell remained but the inside was empty.
Political-career relations reached new lows during the Reagan years. The high turnover rate of political appointees was second only to presidential hostility as a reason for this nadir. In one study, the career executives
reported an average tenure by their superiors of 12 months. Some noted that appointees who stayed longer than eight months were considered "old timers". . .. Obviously, when political tenure is so short, building a relationship of trust and respect is unlikely. One respondent, who in six years has worked for six different political managers, noted "nobody cared about good management, and even if they did, they were not here long enough to do anything about it." Said another, "Five years [into the Reagan presidency] we are still circling one another in this agency, and there is still a we-they mentality." (Ingraham and Ban 1986, 155)
Page 38
The Reagan administration's approach had other negative impacts on political-career relations. Because it placed an overriding emphasis on political responsiveness, it created problems for careerists in that it "neither valued nor tolerated more traditional public management perspectives," their area of expertise. This,
Following Nixon's lead, Reagan's administrative strategy advanced beyond this somewhat passive strategy to an active one, vis-à-vis the careerists:
Reagan ultimately went ahead to make explicit political use of the Senior Executive Service, usually by removing career officials from important slots and filling them with partisans. He also used reductions in force as a legal means of eliminating whole bureaucratic units staffed by careerists. This was done systematically, in the interests of presidential control and successful pursuit of the Reagan agenda. As a strategy for infiltrating the bureaucracy, it went way beyond anything Nixon had attempted. Yet it met with no opposition. (Moe 1991, 151)
Meanwhile, the numbers of limited-term political executive and Schedule C positions had also grown, more so at some agencies than at others. Like Eisenhower, who in 1953 created the political Schedule C positions to move partisans into the lower reaches of the bureaucracy, Reagan also used these positions to place loyalists where he hoped they could
Page 37
actually run the agencies. "The effect of this is that by August 1983 the number of Schedule C appointments exceeded the total number of Carter's Schedule Cs during his four-year term" (Salamon and Abramson 1984, 46).
This administrative presidency ploy meant not just the strategic placement of ideological soul mates but encouragement for them to advance policy objectives through use of their administrative power. Using this gambit, the PASs killed pending regulations left over from the final days of the Carter administration and slowed the issuance of new ones through executive orders and OMB procedures. They initiated "severe budget cuts, staff reductions, and a general easing of regulatory vigor," which led to reduced regulatory enforcement actions in many areas. They also "reinterpreted the conduct of agency business in accord with the administration's philosophy . . . of cooperation with business rather than confrontation in achieving regulatory compliance" (ibid., 47).
What was the ultimate result of the administrative presidency as practiced by the Reagan Republicans? Heclo describes the American system resulting from the Republican's version of the administrative presidency as being "hollow at the center" (Ingraham and Ban 1988, 12). Mark Goldstein, a staff member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, in a personal interview extended Heclo's theory to the government as a whole: "hollow government" was the result of twelve years of Republican administration. Government after the Republicans had neither the resources nor the management expertise to accomplish the tasks it had been given. The government had been hollowed out-the shell remained but the inside was empty.
Political-career relations reached new lows during the Reagan years. The high turnover rate of political appointees was second only to presidential hostility as a reason for this nadir. In one study, the career executives
reported an average tenure by their superiors of 12 months. Some noted that appointees who stayed longer than eight months were considered "old timers". . .. Obviously, when political tenure is so short, building a relationship of trust and respect is unlikely. One respondent, who in six years has worked for six different political managers, noted "nobody cared about good management, and even if they did, they were not here long enough to do anything about it." Said another, "Five years [into the Reagan presidency] we are still circling one another in this agency, and there is still a we-they mentality." (Ingraham and Ban 1986, 155)
Page 38
The Reagan administration's approach had other negative impacts on political-career relations. Because it placed an overriding emphasis on political responsiveness, it created problems for careerists in that it "neither valued nor tolerated more traditional public management perspectives," their area of expertise. This,
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