The specter of unbridled executive power looms large in the American political imagination. Are checks and balances enough to constrain ambitious executives? Checks in the Balance presents a new theory of separation of powers that brings legislative capacity to the fore, explaining why Congress and state legislatures must possess both the opportunities and the means to constrain presidents and governors—and why, without these tools, executive power will prevail.

Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower reveal how legislative capacity—which they conceive of as the combination of a legislature’s resources and policymaking powers—is the key to preventing the accumulation of power in the hands of an encroaching executive. They show how low-capacity legislatures face difficulties checking the executive through mechanisms such as discretion and oversight, and how presidents and governors unilaterally bypass such legislative adversaries to impose their will. When legislative capacity is high, however, the legislative branch can effectively stifle executives. Bolton and Thrower draw on a wealth of historical evidence on congressional capacity, oversight, discretion, and presidential unilateralism. They also examine thousands of gubernatorial executive orders, demonstrating how varying capacity in the states affects governors’ power.

Checks in the Balance affirms the centrality of legislatures in tempering executive power—and sheds vital new light on how and why they fail.

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES

A Foot Out the Door: What Drives Bureaucratic Exit into Lobbying Careers (with Joshua McCrain) — Forthcoming. Political Science Research and Methods.

Abstract: The revolving door is a potential mechanism of private influence over policy. Recent work primarily examines the revolving of legislators and their staff, with little focus on the federal bureaucracy. To analyze decisions to turnover into lobbying, we develop an argument emphasizing the (1) policy expertise acquired from federal employment; (2) the proximity of employees to political decision-making; and (3) the agency policymaking environment. Leveraging federal personnel and lobbying data, we find the first two factors predict revolving whereas the policymaking environment has an inconsistent impact. We highlight the importance of studying selection into lobbying for estimating casual effects of lobbyist characteristics on revenue and contribute to the literature on bureaucratic careers and the nature of private influence in policymaking.

Studying Bureaucracy in a Diverse Democracy (with Sharece Thrower) — 2023. Congress & the Presidency (special issue on New Perspectives in American Legislative Studies) 50(2):135-163.

Abstract: The federal bureaucracy is well-studied, with developed research agendas on topics related to its policy decisions, performance, and interactions with the broader political system. Yet issues of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness remain relatively understudied by political scientists in this area. In this essay, we provide a blueprint for incorporating these topics into the study of the bureaucracy in political science. We first review the current state of the literature, highlighting two key issues: (1) capacity and performance and (2) political influence. In doing so, we discuss how exploring issues of diversity and equity might shed light on several unresolved questions in these areas and open potential avenues for future research. Overall, we believe that engaging with varied dimensions of diversity is fundamental for enriching the literature on the administrative state and for understanding the efficacy of our democracy in advancing the interests of marginalized groups. 

Gridlock, Bureaucratic Control, and Non-Statutory Policymaking in Congress — 2022. American Journal of Political Science 66(1):238-254.

Abstract: Increasing ideological polarization and dysfunction in Congress raise questions about whether and how Congress remains capable of constraining the activities of other actors in the separation of powers system. In this paper, I argue Congress uses non-statutory policymaking tools to overcome the burdens of legislative gridlock in an increasingly polarized time to constrain executive branch actors. I leverage a new dataset of committee reports issued by the House and Senate appropriations committees from fiscal years 1923 through 2019 to empirically explore these dynamics and evaluate my argument. Traditionally, these reports are a primary vehicle through which Congress directs agency policymaking in the appropriations process. Committees increasingly turn to them when passing legislation is most difficult and interbranch agency problems are most pronounced. In this way, non-statutory mechanisms may help maintain the balance of power across branches, even when Congress faces gridlock-induced incapacity.

Legislative Constraints, Ideological Conflict, and the TIming of Executive Unilateralism (with Sharece Thrower) — 2022. Legislative Studies Quarterly 47(1):3-36.

Abstract: Whether unilateral actions are used to circumvent legislative policy preferences is a central question in separated systems. Although executives have incentives to engage in this behavior, US policymaking studies offer little evidence of it. We explore how intervals between legislative sessions can create such opportunities, depending on interbranch policy disagreement and legislatures’ special session powers. During inter-session breaks, executives issue more executive orders under divided government relative to unified, but only when legislatures lack control over special sessions. Executives facing legislatures with such powers cannot exploit these breaks. We demonstrate these dynamics in the US states. Additionally, we find governors “wait out” legislatures without special session powers, engaging in more unilateral activity following the adjournment of sessions. This study has implications for understanding the conditions under which legislatures can constrain executive power and the balance of power in separated systems.

Ideology, Unionization, and Personnel Politics in the Federal Budget Process — 2021. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 31(1):38-55.

Abstract: This article studies how administrations seek to shape the federal workforce through the budget process. I develop a theory of personnel politics in which presidents balance ideological and interest group demands in distributing human resources across the federal government. I argue administrations advantage organizations with which they are ideologically aligned and that agencies with higher levels of union penetration see increased budgeted personnel levels, particularly during Democratic presidencies. Using an original dataset of budgeted personnel levels from fiscal years (FY) 1983–2016 and a series of regression analyses, I find strong support for these hypotheses. I also examine the sensitivity of presidential strategy to congressional preferences, agency professionalization, and leadership politicization, providing insights into how this control strategy interacts with the broader environment. Overall, these results have implications for understanding the political dynamics of human capital and capacity in the federal bureaucracy, the administrative presidency, and the politics of performance in federal agencies.

Elections, Ideology, and Turnover in the U.S. Federal Bureaucracy (with John M. de Figureiredo and David E. Lewis) — 2021. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 31(2):451-466.

Abstract: A defining feature of public sector employment in the United States is the regular change in elected leadership. We describe how these changes alter policy and disrupt civil servants’ influence over agency decisions, potentially shaping their career choices. Using data on careers from over three million federal employees in the US from 1988-2011, we evaluate how administration changes influence turnover in a series of regression analyses. We find substantial stability in the civil service but also some pockets of responsiveness to political factors, particularly among career senior executives in agencies with views divergent from the president’s. A combination of factors, including transitions, policy priorities, and ideological differences, could increase turnover propensity for these employees by nearly one-third in some agencies over an administration’s first term. This has implications for understanding possible mechanisms linking politics and organizational capacity and for understanding how and for whom politics is influential in career decisions.

The Constraining Power of the Purse: Executive Discretion and Legislative Appropriations (with Sharece Thrower) - 2019, Journal of Politics 81(4):1266-1281.

Abstract: Discretion is fundamental to understanding inter-branch interactions in the US separation of powers system. Yet, measuring discretion is challenging. The few existing measures have difficulty capturing both delegation and constraint in a consistent way over time. In this paper, we propose a novel measure of executive discretion based on legislative appropriations to all agencies, weighted by spending limitatios imposed by Congress in appropriations committee reports. We provide evidence for the validity of the measure, including a test of the  ally principle to establish construct validity. Finally, we demonstrate the wider utility of the measure by employing it to evaluate hypotheses about how political control over the bureaucracy influences congressional policymaking in the context of discretion. We show that agency design and presidential control are important factors in congressional decisions. Overall, we present a versatile measure of discretion that researchers can use to explore a variety of questions in American politics.

Legislative Constraints on Executive Unilateralism in Separation of Powers Systems (with Michael Barber and Sharece Thrower) - 2019, Legislative Studies Quarterly 44(3):515-548.

Abstract: Can legislatures effectively check unilateral executive power? One prominent and counterintuitive finding in previous work is that executives pursue unilateralism less often under divided government. While executives see greater potential policy gains through unilateral action during divided government, we argue that their likelihood of acting unilaterally depends on an opposed legislature’s ability to retaliate. When polarization is high and majorities are marginal, executives are freer to act unilaterally given the difficulties legislatures have in statutorily responding. Unilateralism is also more likely when legislatures lack non-statutory means of punishment, such as regulatory review. In the largest analysis of gubernatorial executive unilateralism to date, we use a new dataset of 24,232 executive orders in the U.S. states between 1993-2013 to evaluate this argument and find strong support for its predictions. These results provide insights into how legislative policymaking capacity can influence the functioning of separation of powers systems.

Providing Access to Confidential Research Data Through Synthesis and Verification: An Application to Data on Employees of the U.S. Federal Government  (with Andres Barrientos, Tom Balmat, Jerome Reiter, John de Figueiredo, Ashwin Machanavajjhala, Yan Chen, Charley Kneifel, and Mark DeLong) - 2018, Annals of Applied Statistics 12(2):1124-1156.

Abstract: Data stewards seeking to provide access to large-scale social science data face a difficult challenge. They have to share data in ways that protect privacy and confidentiality, are informative for many analyses and purposes, and are relatively straightforward to use by data analysts. One approach suggested in the literature is that data stewards generate and release synthetic data, i.e., data simulated from statistical models, while also providing users access to a verification server that allows them to assess the quality of inferences from the synthetic data. We present an application of the synthetic data plus verification server approach to longitudinal data on employees of the U. S. federal government. As part of the application, we present a novel model for generating synthetic career trajectories, as well as strategies for generating high dimensional, longitudinal synthetic datasets. We also present novel verification algorithms for regression coefficients that satisfy differential privacy. We illustrate the integrated use of synthetic data plus verification via analysis of differentials in pay by race. The integrated system performs as intended, allowing users to explore the synthetic data for potential pay differentials and learn through verifications which findings in the synthetic data hold up and which do not. The analysis on the confidential data reveals pay differentials across races not documented in published studies.

Legislative Capacity and Executive Unilateralism (with Sharece Thrower) - 2016, American Journal of Political Science 60(3):649-663.

Abstract: This paper develops a theory of presidential unilateralism in which both ideological divergence with Congress and congressional capacity influence the president's use of executive orders.  We argue that when Congress is less capable of constraining the executive, the president will issue more executive orders during periods of divided government.  Conversely, in periods of high congressional capacity, the president is less likely to issue executive orders when faced with an opposed Congress.  Based on an examination of institutional changes, we identify years prior to the mid-1940s as characterized by low congressional capacity and the subsequent period as characterized by high capacity.  Testing the theory between 1905 and 2010, we find strong support for these predictions and demonstrate that legislative capacity conditions the role of ideological disagreement in shaping presidential action.  Overall, this paper deepens our current understanding of the dynamics of separation of powers politics and the limits of executive power.

Related: LSE USAPP Blog, AJPS Blog

Organizational Capacity, Regulatory Review, and the Limits of Political Control (with Rachel Augustine Potter and Sharece Thrower) - 2016, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 32(2):242-271.

Abstract: Studies of administrative politics focus primarily on political control and ignore organizational capacity. We argue that political and organizational factors, as well as the interaction between the two, are necessary for explaining executive policymaking. To test this theory, we consider the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), an agency often perceived to be the president’s political instrument. Using a new dataset of over 22,000 regulations reviewed by OIRA, we demonstrate that political factors influence review lengths, but organizational factors also exhibit a significant role. We find that reviews are longer when OIRA is understaffed and over-worked. Significantly, we demonstrate that low organizational capacity inhibits the president’s ability to expedite priority rules. Overall, this study highlights the organizational limits of political control. 

AVAILABLE WORKING PAPERS

Collegial Leadership Structures, Ideological Diversity, and Policymaking in the United States [Download paper]

Abstract: How, when, and why does ideological diversity in an agency's leadership structure affect policy? Agencies led by bipartisan commissions create, implement, and enforce policies in a wide range of areas. The effects of this leadership form on the policy choices of these agencies are largely unknown. In this paper, I develop and formalize a theory of commission policymaking in an environment where political principals review their decisions. I argue that dissenting votes from commissioners serve as fire alarms for other actors to audit, and possibly reverse, commission policies. The commission chair, however, has incentives to craft policies that survive intervention by principals. Thus, when the commission's political principals are opposed to the chair, more consensual policies with less dissent emerge. A comparison to a model with a single leader suggests that commissions evince greater responsiveness to principals and have fewer of their policies vetoed by Congress and the courts. I test the hypotheses derived from the theory using two original datasets: a record of all Federal Communications Commission votes on notices of proposed rulemaking from 1965-2013 and a dataset of limitation riders directed at agency regulations. I find strong support for the hypotheses generated by the theory. Contrary to previous work, I show that commissions are not insulated from politics and bipartisanship does not guarantee consensual policymaking. These results have implications for understanding agency design, policymaking, and the democratic accountability of the administrative state.

Creating Capacity: Presidential Control and the Senior Executive Service [Download paper]

Abstract: I examine how presidents control the capacity of agencies through the distribution of career Senior Executive Service employees. Unlike most studies of bureaucratic control that view effects on agency capacity as ancillary to the ideological goals of politicians, I argue that presidents seek to directly alter the capacity of agencies through this mechanism. I begin by first demonstrating that career SES employees are capacity-enhancing, improving the performance of agencies. I then develop a theory about the allocation of these appointments. I argue that presidents seek to increase the capacity of agencies that are ideologically-aligned with them but are constrained in their ability to do so by the preferences of Congress as well as existing bureaucratic arrangements. Using a dataset of SES allocations across agencies, I find strong support for my argument. The results suggest that in addition to seeking control over the ideological outputs of agencies, presidents also directly manipulate agency capacity.

Policy, Institutions, and Judicial Legitimacy: The Role of Issue Preferences in Structuring Attitudes Toward Courts (with Paul Gardner) [Download paper]

Critics and defenders of judicial elections have drawn attention to the issue of the effects of selection institutions on the publics’ evaluations of the judiciary. In this paper, we argue that individuals’ perceptions of courts are less affected by selection institutions and other procedural concerns and more by policy preferences. Using a variety of experimental and survey evidence, we demonstrate that while individuals’ views of judges and courts are somewhat influenced by selection methods, individual policy concerns play a much larger role. In particular, when individuals perceive a mismatch between their preferences and legal policy outcomes, they express significantly lower levels of support for and trust in courts. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these policy concerns also impact support for selection institutions. In particular, individuals who are dissatisfied with outcomes and judges are more likely to support elections over merit selection/retention plans. In sum, these results suggest that individuals’ support for courts and selection institutions are premised as much, if not more, on instrumental policy goals than on concerns for procedural justice and judicial independence.

WORKS IN PROGRESS

Politicization and Employee Opinion in the Federal Bureaucracy

Rising Wages and Human Capital in the U.S. Government (with John de Figueiredo)

Ideology, Learning, and Performance in Federal Agencies (with Alex Hirsch)

Migration and Civil Service Reform in 19th Century America (with James Hollyer and Leonard Wantchekon)