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The Triumph of Loyalty Over Competence: The Bush Administration and the Exhaustion of the Politicized Presidency
Author(s) -
Moynihan Donald P.,
Roberts Alasdair S.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02178.x
Subject(s) - presidency , bureaucracy , loyalty , administration (probate law) , competence (human resources) , public administration , politics , political science , rationality , sociology , law , management , economics
The most important administrative aspect of the George W. Bush presidency was not its formal management reform agenda, but its attempt to extend the politicized presidency. Efforts to assert tighter political control of the federal bureaucracy, revived during the Ronald Reagan administration, were pursued to an extreme under Bush. Loyalty triumphed over competence in selection, and political goals displaced rationality in decision making. However, the strategy of politicization undermined the Bush administration’s own policy goals as well as its broader agenda to restore the strength of the institutional presidency. This apparent failure of strategy signals the urgent necessity for a fundamental reconsideration of the politicized presidency.