The Consequences of Politicization and Agency Structure for Federal Employment

• In Event: The Impact of Politicization and the Budget on Federal Agencies

Abstract

Scholars have spent considerable time and energy exploring how elected officials attempt to influence federal agencies. While important work has examined administrative design decisions and the political appointment strategy commonly referred to as politicization, scholars tend to overlook whether and how agency structure affects internal agency administration across time. We remedy this deficiency by developing two dynamic measures of agency structure and politicization. First, we utilize historical versions of the United States Code to construct estimates of the structural insulation of agencies from political control for each decade since Watergate. We then leverage the complete employment history of the federal government from 1973-2019 using OPM records to identify all Executive Schedule, noncareer SES, and Schedule C appointments across the executive branch. Our novel data enables us to explore how agency structure and appointments change and interact over time to influence internal agency operations. Using a precise measure of the entry and exit of political appointees, we examine whether insulating an agency from politics results in a stable administrative environment that encourages civil servants to remain in government service.

Authors

• Scott Limbocker, United States Military Academy

• Mark D. Richardson, Georgetown University

• Jennifer L. Selin, University of Missouri, Columbia