The Call’s Coming from Inside the House: Presidents’ Strategic Use of Directives

• In Event: The Use of Unilateral Powers

Abstract

Scholarship on executive unilateralism largely assumes that presidents act alone, without accounting for the role of bureaucratic actors. Though recent studies examine agencies' role in the formation of executive orders, the broader literature has yet to fully explore agency implementation of unilateral directives and how it shapes presidential decision-making. In this paper, I develop a theory concerning the role of bureaucratic non-compliance in shaping presidents' choice of unilateral directive. Specifically, I argue that as presidents gain more political control over agency decision-making or agency capacity increases, presidents will be more willing to delegate authority to the agency via bureaucratic directive, especially highly traceable directives. To test these predictions, I use an agency-year level dataset of unilateral directives to identify the agency primarily responsible for implementation and match that information to other agency-level characteristics, such as ideological alignment with the president, political control, and capacity. I find that an increase in political control does result in presidents' directing these agencies with unilateral directives, specifically highly traceable directives.

Author

• Meredith McLain, Tufts University