The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush (56 page)

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Authors: Judith E. Michaels

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staff. Thus, the political executive and his political staff become "jigsaw puzzle" managers. Other staff see and work on the individual pieces, but never have enough of the pieces to be able to learn the entire picture (Sanera 1984, 514-15).
This approach is also referred to bleakly as "mushroom management" because it keeps subordinates in the dark, covered with manure (Pfiffner 1985, 355).
The key role that agencies play in policy formation and the different perspectives of the career and political executives create fertile ground for conflict between the two camps of executives. The interpretive and implementational responsibilities of the executive agencies also mean that the potential for conflict of varying degrees of severity grows in inverse proportion to the specificity of the authorizing legislation. The clearer Congress is in its policy desires, the less room there is for interpretation and conflict between political and career executives. However, if Congress, for political or other reasons, chooses to leave its wishes ambiguous, policy making falls more directly to the agency and with it, greater potential for conflict between the political and career executives. Conflict is virtually guaranteed if the White House is opposed to the intent of the legislation itself.
The appointees themselves often work against complete political control of the bureaucratic process due to their inexperience or personal agendas. "'Political' appointees as a group have been distinguishable by nothing so much as by their common lack of experience in party politics, their unfamiliarity with agency programs and their general protectiveness of their organizational jurisdictions" (Heclo 1977, 79).
But political executives can be successful change agents for the president if they stay in place long enough, have sufficient skills particularly people or political skills) to deal with both the internal and external politics, and avoid identifying with their organization or resorting to illegal practices.
Nonetheless, careerists are the determinant factor in agency change because the appointees "are often not a coherent management team. They are a dramatically disparate group of individuals who obtain policy direction and guidance from many different sources that may, but most frequently do not, include the president or White House staff. To expect coherent policy to emerge from such a setting is the stuff of exquisite fairy tales" (Ingraham 1991, 192-93).
PASs can compensate for their diffuse institutional character with adroit use of careerists. They can look to tools of the administrative pres-
 
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idency and attempt to "alter agency culture by promoting and recruiting careerists who share their goals and transferring or otherwise neutralizing others. . . . In effect, determined political appointees can make agency goals congruent to administration goals" (Maranto 1991, 248-49).
However effective this approach, it is an indirect one that further highlights the importance of careerists. The central place of careerists leads some to "question the underpinnings of theories such as those supporting the 'administrative presidency"' (Ingraham 1991, 192-93).
Capture: Bureauphilia
Capture is best expressed by the phrase
marrying the natives,
used derisively to describe the depoliticization that occurs when an appointee comes to identify, for whatever reason, more with her or his agency or its interest groups and less with the White House.
As discussed previously, depoliticization happens as appointees try to go deeply into the workings of their agencies and micromanage the work of the bureaucrats they supervise. They tend then to take on the perspective of their agency and become less responsive to political pressure from the White House. "Few political appointees are likely to be united by bonds of party loyalty," according to Heclo (1977, 106). While they may be in general agreement with the president's or the party's policies, they are unlikely to have been active in the campaign that brought them all to office and also unlikely to be moved by political rhetoric. Managing their agencies well becomes their priority. These are the PASs accused of "going native."
Capture is charged when an appointee supports a program the administration wants scrapped or argues against a budget reduction in her or his agency. According to Reagan EOP officials, there was no "good" reason to depart from such administration policy and the White House often retaliated for such defection by cutting funds, moving or reducing staff, or appointing more "trustworthy" subordinates to subvert the PAS's errant course. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, for example, experienced this form of retaliation when he deviated from Reagan's social policy, particularly with regard to abortion, AIDs, and smoking. He suddenly found his key staff aide fired and himself isolated. Eventually, he resigned from office.
The capture or bureauphilic perspective gives primacy to the long-term careerists and their expertise in agency direction. It counsels short-term political appointees to cooperate with them and include them in policy making. This perspective is criticized as encouraging bureaucratic freewheeling unfettered by democratic (read: political) control.
 
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Comity: Realpolitik and the Cycle of Accommodation
Once political appointees are in place they do not exist in a policy vacuum, of course. They live and breathe the same bureaucratic air as do the career executives, with whom they may have little in common, and much to divide. Yet, the impression one gets when analyzing political bureaucrats versus career bureaucrats is that there is no ''versus" involved. Bureaucrats of either type "love their program, not the parties" (Heclo 1977, 148). That common focus tends to ameliorate the factors that divide in favor of those that unify.
Pfiffner (1987b), Lorentzen (1985), Huddleston (1987), Maranto (1991), and others observe what is called the cycle of accommodation in political-career relations. It seems to work broadly across all recent administrations. PASs may come into office breathing fiery distrust of the careerists, but if they stay long enough (two to three years), they learn to work with their careerists. The comity that develops between them "results in a more sophisticated appreciation of the contribution of the career service and a mutual respect and trust" (Pfiffner 1987b, 60).
John Ehrlichman's change of heart is representative of many White House officials. While he initially "saw relations with the bureaucracy as "guerilla warfare," he later came to feel that the Nixon administration lost ground by excluding "career executives from policy deliberations, both because of their expertise and because of their ability to develop support for the administration's programs" (ibid., 60).
Indeed, the NAPA study demonstrated little variation among PASs of whatever administration in their regard for their career colleagues, as the following table indicates (ibid., 61).
While the Reagan administration officials, as might be expected, held the careerists in lowest esteem, it is notable that they rated them only marginally lower than the others and not below 77 percent in competence or political responsiveness. Even Carter's appointeeswhose boss, like Reagan, ran against the Washington bureaucracy (but significantly, much less against the bureaucrats, themselves, than did Reagan)rated careerists similarly with other presidents' appointees. The Bush appointees clearly reflected the more positive attitude toward the civil service that their boss embodied, scoring the careerists the highest of all the PASs. And, in fact, that attitude was reaffirmed in the PAS interviews.
It is widely acknowledged that most PASs come to see the value of a "neutral" bureaucracy sooner rather than later.
Not only are [careerists] responsive, but they perform functions that are essential to the proper operation of the government and to the success of
 
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Table 6.1. PASs Evaluate Careerists' Competence and Responsiveness
Percentage of PASs Surveyed
Administration
PASs Rating
"Competent"
PASs Rating
"Responsive"
Johnson
92
89
Nixon
88
84
Ford
80
82
Carter
81
86
Reagan
77
78
Bush
94
92
Source:
From the Bush PAS Survey of those who rated their career SESs as competent and responsive to a "moderate," "great," or ''very great" extent.
the political appointees for whom they work. While we expect career executives to be responsive to political leadership, at the same time we expect them to resist illegal or unethical direction from above . . .. One example of appropriate bureaucratic resistance was the refusal of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to audit George McGovern's campaign aides' tax returns at the order of the Nixon White House. Thus we expect bureaucrats to be responsive, but not too responsive. (Pfiffner 1987b, 62)
Another example of comity is one brought on by external pressures. If conflict between careerists and appointees becomes public enough to
attract attention from powerful external actors, the White House may appoint more moderate (or at least politically competent) individuals, either piecemeal or en masse. The latter occurred with the departure of embattled Administrator Anne Burford and many others from the Reagan Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Indeed, some suggest that since bureaucrats implement programs supported by Congress, interest groups, and public opinion, it is misleading to assume that presidents and their appointees alone can control the bureaucracy. Instead, "the best way is to work with the bureaucracy and not against it". . .. The short tenure of PASs suggests that there might not be a single transition but rather a continual series of transitions over the course of an administration, varying with leadership changes in particular organizations. (Maranto 1991, 249, and Waterman 1989, 170)
Heclo (1977) looks at the givens of Washington's political scene and opts for his version of comity, the realpolitik response. The givens are: the

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