"Do This! Do That!’ and Nothing Will Happen”: Executive Orders and Bureaucratic Responsivenes
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-22-2014
Publication Title
American Politics Research
DOI
10.1177/1532673X14534062
ISSN
1552-3373
Abstract
How effective is unilateral presidential power? Recent developments have shifted presidential scholarship in the direction of a more institutional approach, and one of the most important tenets of this work holds that the president has the ability to make policy on his own. However, there is significant anecdotal evidence suggesting that agency responsiveness to executive orders is not at all guaranteed. This study leverages a unique data set tracing the implementation of executive orders across 10 government agencies, and the results indicate that despite conventional wisdom, presidential directives are not universally implemented, and a host of factors come to bear on an agency’s decision as to whether they will respond. This project represents among the first quantitative empirical assessments of the utility of unilateral power and suggests that the field may benefit most from shifting toward a bargaining-based model similar to those used in legislative scholarship.
Recommended Citation
Kennedy, Joshua B..
2014.
""Do This! Do That!’ and Nothing Will Happen”: Executive Orders and Bureaucratic Responsivenes."
American Politics Research, 43 (1): 59-82: Sage Publications.
doi: 10.1177/1532673X14534062 source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532673X14534062
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/poli-sci-facpubs/148
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