The Role of the Presidency in Shaping Lower Level Policy-Making Processes

Abstract

Professor Sullivan here presents an interesting study of the ways in which a President can influence making at the lower levels of the bureaucracy. Direct intervention at these levels, he feels, is dangerous because the political payoff is not worth the risk to presidential prestige. There is no substitute, then, for a strong President who is expert in the methods of politics and can succeed in creating a policy ethos which will pervade the decisions made at all levels.