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How do political actors learn about their environment when the "data" provided by political processes are characterized by rare events and highly discontinuous variation? In such learning environments, what can theory predict about how learning actors will take costly actions that are difficult to reverse (e.g., eliminating programs, approving a risky new product, revising a security policy, firing or recalling an appointed or elected official)? We develop a formal model for this problem and apply it to the termination of bureaucratic agencies. The conventional wisdom that "the older a bureau is, the less likely it is to die" (Downs 1967,Inside Bureaucracy) persists but has never been properly tested. This paper offers a learning-based stochastic optimization model of agency termination that offers two counterintuitive predictions. First, politicians terminate agencies only after learning about them, so the hazard of agencies should be nonmonotonic, contradicting Downs's prediction. Second, if terminating agencies is costly, agencies are least likely to be terminated when politicians are fiscally constrained or when the deficit is high. We assess the model by developing a battery of tests for the shape of the hazard function and estimate these and other duration models using data on U.S. federal government agencies created between 1946 and 1997. Results show that the hazard rate of agency termination is strongly nonmonotonic and that agencies are less likely to be terminated under high deficits and divided government. For the first 50 years of the agency duration distribution, the modal termination hazard occurs at five years after agencies are enabled. Methodologically, our approach ties the functional form of a hazard model tightly to theory and presents an applied "agenda" for testing the shape of an empirical hazard function. With extensions, our model and empirical framework are applicable to a range of political phenomena.

AbstractThe U.S. federal government spends huge sums buying goods and services from outside of the public sector. Given the sums involved, strategic government purchasing can have electoral consequences. In this article, we suggest that more politicized agencies show favoritism to businesses in key electoral constituencies and to firms connected to political parties. We evaluate these claims using new data on U.S. government contracts from 2003 to 2015. We find that executive departments, particularly more politicized department‐wide offices, are the most likely to have contracts characterized by noncompetitive procedures and outcomes, indicating favoritism. Politically responsive agencies—but only those—give out more noncompetitive contracts in battleground states. We also observe greater turnover in firms receiving government contracts after a party change in the White House, but only in the more politicized agencies. We conclude that agency designs that limit appointee representation in procurement decisions reduce political favoritism.

Prior to becoming president, Donald Trump was widely known as a successful business executive. As a candidate, Trump promised to run government like his business. His supporters and critics, however, disagree about how the president has performed as a manager. In this article, we review President Trump's performance as a manager during his first year in office. We examine three dimensions of his approach—transition preparation, staffing, and management style. Notably, we find that the president's halting transition limited his effectiveness in the first year. Unlike previous presidents, President Trump chose neither a politicizing nor a centralizing strategy to gain control over administrative policy making during his first year. We also note that President Trump prefers a competitive and freewheeling decision‐making environment but is struggling with the consequences of such a structure. The article concludes with an assessment of the first year and prospects for the president moving forward.

Career executives often occupy administrative positions that determine the pace and content of policy, such as those responsible for developing regulations. Yet, presidential administrations need control over these positions to achieve policy aims. This article considers the extent to which new presidential administrations marginalize career executives in key regulatory positions by transferring responsibilities to another individual and whether the mere expectation of political conflict with a new administration drives career regulators from their positions. Using unique new data on 866 career regulators that led major rulemaking efforts between 1995 and 2013, we demonstrate that turnover among career executives in key regulatory positions increases following a party change in the White House. Turnover also increases during a presidential election year, but this effect is conditioned by bureaucrats' expectations of the election outcome. Finally, career executives are more likely to depart in response to favorable labor market conditions. Given our findings that turnover in regulatory responsibilities is driven both by presidential marginalization and strategic exit by bureaucrats, we conclude with implications for presidential efforts to control the administrative state.

To what extent do presidents select appointees based upon campaign experience and connections? The answer to this question has important implications for our understanding of presidential management and political leadership. This article presents a theory explaining where presidents place different types of appointees and why, focusing on differences in ideology, competence, and non‐policy patronage benefits among potential appointees. We develop a formal model and test its implications with new data on 1,307 persons appointed in the first six months of the Obama administration. The empirical results broadly support the theory, suggesting that President Obama was more likely to place appointees selected for non‐policy patronage reasons in agencies off his agenda, in agencies that shared his policy views, and where appointees are least able to affect agency performance. We conclude that patronage continues to play an important role in American politics, with important consequences for campaigns, presidential politics, and governance.