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The president as reformer: when do presidents initiate administrative reform through legislation?
The Bush administration's recent creation of a Department of Homeland Security has brought attention to executive reform. While massive reforms such as the formation of the Department of Homeland Security and the creation of the Department of Defense draw the most attention, presidential reforms of the executive branch are quite common. Presidents continually tinker with the arrangements of the executive branch. Often presidents portray this tinkering as apolitical or routine.
While reform initiatives are ever-present, attention to reform varies over time. This article assesses a variety of explanations of why presidents' attention to administrative reform varies over time. Why are some years characterized by a large number of reform efforts proposed by the president? Why does president-initiated administrative reform disappear in other years? The findings suggest that the president's attention to administrative reform is largely the product of political factors. Reform is a policy tool that is most often used when political opportunities allow for legislative success. This finding differs substantially from the rhetoric of neutrality surrounding many reform efforts. Theories of Attention to Administrative Reform The twentieth century included 16 separate major reform efforts (March and Olson 1983, 281-82; and the more recent National Performance Review). Each initiative sparked controversy about the tools with which one should reform the federal bureaucracy. From this controversy, March and Olson identified two major themes (282). The first theme is orthodox administra...See the full content of this document
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