The Impossible Dream: Draining the Swamp and Implementing Unilateral Action

• In Event: Presidential Control Over the Policy Process

Abstract

One promise that presidents consistently make is to “drain the swamp” by limiting the reach and growth of government. However, at the same time presidents are reining government in, they are busily issuing executive orders, proclamations, memoranda, determinations, and national security directives for others to implement. Acting alone can be tantalizing to use throughout a president’s administration because unilateral action epitomizes power without persuasion (Howell 2003). But implementation requires the president to induce others to act. This empirical and archival study of directives issued by Presidents Nixon to Trump looks behind the scenes to analyze how the president’s unilateral efforts to drain the swamp work in conjunction with their powers to command and persuade the executive branch to implement their other unilateral actions. The results of a Cox proportional hazard model suggest that the pursuit of unilateral policy change seems to be at cross-purposes with the impossible promise of draining the swamp by toppling the executive branch. Orders to drain the swamp including a reduction in budget requests, appropriations, and staff size decrease the likelihood of implementation. Yet, in the aggregate, except for President Trump, about 90% of all unilateral orders are implemented and importantly, tools of command are more effective than those of persuasion for having the president’s orders carried out.

Author

• Michelle Helene Belco, University of Houston