Selecting a Presidential Transition Team: Does Transparency Make a Difference?

• In Event: Conflict and Changes in the U.S and Abroad

Abstract

In order to prepare to govern, the US president-elect relies on a team to help choose the cabinet, develop a policy agenda, and review each federal agency. Despite the importance of this work, there’s little known about the people who are chosen to staff the transition team. In particular, research has not shown whether transparency rules impact who serves on different parts of the transition team nor whether this has changed over time. In this paper, three Democratic transition teams are compared using novel archival and social media data. The findings suggest that, in addition to differences in function, the Biden-Harris transition team reflected rising polarization, falling public trust, and new transparency rules in transition staffing decisions. These findings inform larger questions in public administration and public policy on the impact of reforms, such as good government rules, on personnel and staffing decisions as well as the role of outside groups in the administration of government.

Author

• Heath Brown, City University of New York, Graduate Center and John Jay College