Career motives of presidential appointees and agency communication across American states

Abstract

AbstractDo the career motives of presidential appointees affect program administration? To answer this question, I examine the phased development of policy communication of the U.S. Farm Service Agency (FSA) across states from 2002 to 2018 based on an original collection of historical official websites. This is a rare policy context for examining why peer appointees administer the same programs differently. Linking the state‐by‐state development of FSA newsletters to the career trajectories of state executive directors (SEDs), the presidential appointees who lead state FSAs, I show that SEDs interested in elective office post‐appointment are associated with faster institutionalization of newsletters. Examining these newsletters’ content, I then show that SEDs interested in elective office or a career in advocacy include more participation‐encouraging language in newsletters. These results suggest that appointees’ career goals outside the bureaucracy can potentially expedite innovation in program implementation and enhance the delivery of government benefits to the public, with implications for selecting appointees to enhance bureaucratic performance.