Turnover, Loyalty and Competence in the West Wing: The Trump White House in Historical Context

Abstract

Pundits and scholars alike point to the high rates of administrative chaos and staff turnover in the Trump White House, but prior research has not been able to pin down the cause(s) empirically. In this paper, we develop a survival model and conduct a Bayesian latent trait analysis to examine the tenure rates of White House aides serving presidents Nixon through Trump. We find that, compared to his presidential predecessors, Trump′s White House stands out for its lack of personally loyal aides. This is not surprising given that his pre‐presidential career would not have allowed him to develop the cadre of political loyalists that typically accompanied his predecessors into the West Wing. Nonetheless, we show that it was this lack of personal loyalty among his staff, and not any shortcoming in competence, that led to high rates of turnover.