Politics Of Appointments Research Articles

Appointment Delay for Vacancies on the Federal Communications Commission

Confirmation politics for judicial appointees is an exhaustively studied phenomenon, but the politics of appointment for independent agencies is less well understood, because nominees are very rarely rejected and the Senate fails even to hold a recorded vote for most appointees. However, alternative evidence of conflict between the president and the Senate is available: the length of time it takes to fill a vacancy on a board or commission. An empirical assessment of FCC vacancies, based on an exponential regression model of vacancy duration, demonstrates that statutory restrictions on the partisanship of the board significantly deteriorate the efficiency of the appointment process. In addition, the appointment of minorities (though not of women) occurs only after unusually drawn‐out appointments. A straightforward test of whether divided government leads to extended vacancies turns up negative.

Academic Career Paths: Women in Senior Management in Malaysian Higher Education

Women have made great strides into higher education where they now account for half of all undergraduate and postgraduate enrolments in OECD and most ASEAN countries. Yet globally women are a minority in university senior management. The question many educators and sociologists have asked is: What is the problem? What accounts for this gender imbalance? This case study on women in higher education management in Malaysia investigates women's experiences and perceptions of cultural and structural “glass ceiling” barriers. It is argued that glass ceiling politics cannot be generalized across cultural and nation-state differences. Although universities the world over share more or less similar bureaucratic, organizational, and governance structures, local cultural adaptations shape women's opportunities in culture-specific ways. Main themes identified in this study are: (1) women's difficulties in balancing professional careers with family and domestic responsibilities; (2) cultural values that maintain double standards for men and women in public life; (3) the prevalence of male academic culture that shuts women out; (4) women's reluctance to self-promote their abilities and achievements which can make them institutionally invisible; (5) women's exclusion from the politics of appointments at the most senior levels; and (6) Chinese and Indian women's perceptions of “ethnic concrete ceilings”.

Community, Mosque and Ethnic Politics

This paper focuses on the role of religion in organising a Lebanese Muslim community in Sydney. In particular it looks at the role of the mosque and its relationship to other Lebanese and Islamic organisations in Australia. The analysis centres on the issue of mosque leadership and the politics of appointment of Imams. The conflict over mosque leadership has drawn a culturally and politically isolated community into mainstream political and legal processes in Australia and enhanced the position of the mosque as the central community organisation in the Lebanese Sunni community. The paper argues that the study of immigrant politics has tended to ignore the significance of immigrant culture and organisation in the incorporation of immigrants into Australian social and political structures in favour of studying their participation in trade union and party politics. An attempt is made here to look at the role of immigrant culture and organisation in seeking to define spheres of social and political autonomy outside the workplace, and the way the state seeks to intervene in local community politics to limit that autonomy.

The Politics of Appointment and the Federal Courts' Role in Regulating America: U.S. Courts of Appeals Judgeships from T.R. to F.D.R.

Historians and political scientists have noted that appointments of judges to the U.S. Courts of Appeals are not determined by senatorial courtesy alone. What has not been adequately explained is why and when a president defers to a senator's choice rather than seek to control the selection. This article attempts to understand the politics of federal appellate court appointments. The author first identifies a major change in the work of the courts of appeals during the years 1900-1945—the growth in review of the actions of newly created federal regulatory agencies. Then, by examining Justice Department files and presidential correspondence, he discoveres three patterns of appointment emerging in the same period. The patterns vary with presidential perceptions of the role of the federal government and of the courts of appeals' ability to affect accomplishment of administration goals. Appointments during the first years of the presidencies of Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and during the Harding and Coolidge administrations were dominated by patronage concerns. Those administrations yielded to the recommendations of senators and demonstrated no interest in the policy-making potential of these courts. In the two other patterns the White House played a more active role, with senators more often deferring to the president's selection. Concerns about professionalism dominated selections in Taft's and Hoover's administrations: because they recognized the policy importance of those judgeships but saw the role of government as limited, they sought judicial craftsmen who would make policy only incrementally. Policy concerns dominated selections during Wilson's administration and the latter years of both the Roosevelts' administrations: Justice Department officials screened nominees to determine their policy orientation, because federal appellate court judgeships were perceived as crucial policy positions that could affect the president's ability to implement his reform programs.

The Politics of Appointment and the Federal Courts' Role in Regulating America: U. S. Courts of Appeals Judgeships from T. R. to F. D. R.

The Politics of Appointment and the Federal Courts' Role in Regulating America: U. S. Courts of Appeals Judgeships from T. R. to F. D. R.

Justice Joseph Story and the Politics of Appointment

Justice Joseph Story and the Politics of Appointment