This study proposes a theory of appointee reliability whereby the Senate employs its advise and consent powers to shape executive branch policymaking. As the electoral and policy interests of the Senate and president converge, the Senate will increasingly support executive branch policymaking efforts by increasing the reliability of executive appointees. As electoral and policy interests diverge, however, the Senate will seek to undermine executive branch policymaking efforts by reducing executive appointee reliability. Data on U.S. federal agency leadership appointments reveal empirical evidence consistent with this logic by showing that lower (higher) executive appointee reliability transpires during times of heightened (lower) ideological conflict between the president and Senate, particularly under divided government. Further, the empirical evidence uncovers additional ways the Senate can shape the executive branch appointment process.
Executive Appointee Reliability under Separated Powers: Senatorial Constraints on Executive Branch Leadership Appointments in U.S. Federal Agencies
Recipient of the 2022 Best Paper in American Politics Award by the Midwest Political Science Association. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the 2021 Annual Meetings of the Midwest and Southern Political Science Associations, the GSPIA Internal Research Presentation Series at the University of Pittsburgh, the Syracuse University American Politics Colloquium, the Vanderbilt University Virtual American Executive Politics Seminar, and the Virtual Political Economy Workshop at BI Norwegian Business School. We thank Alex Acs, Annie Benn, Davide Cipullo, Cody Drolc, Christina Kinane, David Lewis, Kenneth Lowande, Matthew Miles, Yu Ouyang, Collin Paschall, and Ryan Williamson for extremely helpful comments on earlier versions. Krause gratefully acknowledges Anne Joseph O’Connell for her contributions to their joint work constructing a database of U.S. federal agency leadership appointments used in the creation of the bureaucratic leader latent trait measures. Replication code and data available on JPIPE’s Harvard Dataverse at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/2AFFY7.
Hollibaugh GE, Krause GA (2024), "Executive Appointee Reliability under Separated Powers: Senatorial Constraints on Executive Branch Leadership Appointments in U.S. Federal Agencies". Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy, Vol. 5 No. 3 pp. 415–441, doi: https://doi.org/10.1561/113.00000107
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