Beyond Fear or Favor: Appointee-Careerist Relations in the Post-Reagan Era

Abstract

With Lowi's personal president remaining the epicenter of public accountability for an impatient and unforgiving citizenry, the administrative presidency promises to retain its allure to embattled chief executives-be they liberal, conservative, or moderate.1 Still, the administrative strategy pursued most vigorously by Ronald Reagan and his more recent predecessors has proven quite controversial, especially as it relates to relationships between political appointees and career bureaucrats. At issue is the quintessential dilemma of the contemporary administrative state: how can a polity best reconcile its needs for bureaucratic responsiveness and accountability, presidential influence within the bureaucracy, and a neutrally competent career civil service? To some, the administrative presidency advances the causes of presidential leadership, purposiveness, and prerogative by fostering responsive competence within the executive branch.2 To others, the approach ill-advisedly fosters conquest-oriented rather than creative tensions between political appointees and careerists, tensions that ultimately undermine the public interest in Lowi's Second American Republic.3