IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/jlqjps/100.00018015.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Quitting in Protest: Presidential Policymaking and Civil Service Response

Author

Listed:
  • Cameron, Charles M.
  • de Figueiredo, John M.

Abstract

We formally model the impact of presidential policymaking on the willingness of bureaucrats to exert effort and stay in the government. In the model, centralized policy initiative by the president demotivates policy-oriented bureaucrats and can impel them to quit rather than implicate themselves in presidentially imposed policies they dislike. Those most likely to quit are a range of moderate bureaucrats. More extreme bureaucrats may be willing to wait out an incumbent president in the hope of shaping future policy. As control of the White House alternates between ideologically opposed extreme presidents, policy-minded moderates depart from bureaucratic agencies leaving only policy extremists or poorly performing "slackers." The consequences for policy making are substantial. Despite these adverse consequences, presidents have strong incentives to engage in centralized policymaking.

Suggested Citation

  • Cameron, Charles M. & de Figueiredo, John M., 2020. "Quitting in Protest: Presidential Policymaking and Civil Service Response," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 15(4), pages 507-538, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00018015
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00018015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00018015
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1561/100.00018015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luca Bellodi & Massimo Morelli & Matia Vannoni, 2021. "A Costly Commitment: Populism, Government Performance, and the Quality of Bureaucracy," CESifo Working Paper Series 9470, CESifo.
    2. Sasso, Greg & Morelli, Massimo, 2021. "Bureaucrats under Populism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00018015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lucy Wiseman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nowpublishers.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.