Czars in the White House: The Rise of Policy Czars as Presidential Management Tools. By Justin S. Vaughn and Jose D. Villalobos. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015. 236 pp. Just what are presidential czars, and how do presidents make use of such positions? Previous answers to this question have ranged from the suggestion that is merely a media moniker for a handful of innocuous coordinating staff to the more dramatic claim that czars are nothing less than an executive branch assault on the Constitution. Despite all of the attention that czars have received in the past decade, there has been little consensus on key points. In Czars in the White House, authors Vaughn and Villalobos offer some much-needed perspective to this debate, using strong theoretical reasoning coupled with rich and engaging case studies spanning the past several administrations. The most significant contribution of this text is the discussion and production of an actionable measure of what constitutes a czar. As presidents have pointed out in the past, no White House official actually operates under the job title of czar, and the lack of an easy operationalization has made reliable lists of these executive posts elusive. For example, the lack of Senate confirmation has been a key element of definitions in studies linking czars to a strategy of bypassing Congress and, yet, Vaughn and Villalobos inform us that common usage of the czar title includes many officials who are actually confirmed. Ultimately, the authors define czars as members of an administration tasked with coordination responsibilities over a particular policy problem that an administration is intent on either solving or at least addressing symbolically (p. 2). So why do presidents use czars? The authors point out that practical presidential politics requires executives to increasingly rely on czars. In particular, public expectations of what a president can and should do have far outstripped the constitutional authority granted to chief executives. Over time, this pressure has led to a dramatic increase in the size and range of tasks to which executive staff must respond on a daily basis. In short, presidents have more to manage, and czars may be a useful tool in doing so. Intuitively, bureaucratic agencies are not nearly as likely to neglect programs and policies if a central czar figure is charged with overseeing their development and implementation (p. 34). Furthermore, even if a czar cannot fix a problem, he or she may be able to provide the impression to the public that a president is doing everything possible. …