The Administrative Presidency and Federal Service

Abstract

Through the 20th and early 21st century, the United States has seen the growth of the administrative presidency. As political polarization has made it much more difficult for a presidential administration to push public policy initiatives through Congress, presidential administrations have become much more dependent on executive orders, policy statements, federal rulemaking, and nonenforcement policies to implement their agenda. Presidential administrations have also attempted to exert much greater control over the actions of federal employees with policymaking and policy implementation responsibilities. The article argues that the modern administrative presidency has become a serious threat to the nation’s democratic values and institutions. The article also argues that in the wrong hands, the administrative state may do great harm. Finally, the article argues that the discipline of public administration must end its love affair with the administrative presidency. The danger of misuse of the administrative state has just become too serious to permit presidential administrations to coerce career civil servants to put the ideological interests of a President over the public interest. To help control this serious problem, the article argues that the discipline of public administration should help to empower federal employees to serve as guardians of constitutional values by providing them the tools necessary to uncover and make known instances of abuse of power by presidential administrations intent upon ignoring the constitutional foundations of the administrative state.