Abstract
The American system of government, being one of constitutionally co-equal branches, lacks a self-evident summit to be staffed and administered. There is no apex in the American system because there is no single forum, such as cabinet, at which bargains are consolidated. The complexity of the US system induces multiple and overlapping responsibilities among politicians in the executive and legislative branches.1 This absence of a clear locus of authority, along with the relatively circumscribed role of the civil service and political parties, leads to a condition in which Washington is heavy with staff across all of its institutions.
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Notes
For evidence of this, see J. D. Aberbach, R. D. Putnam and B. A. Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981) and, as Samuel P. Huntington has argued, ‘America perpetuated a fusion of functions and a division of power, while Europe developed a differentiation of functions and a centralization of power’ (S. P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 110).
J. P. Pfiffner, The Modern Presidency (New York: St Martin’s, 1994) p. 96.
J. P. Burke, The Institutional Presidency (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).
S. Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
C. E. Walcott and K. M. Hult, Governing the White House from Hoover through LBJ (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), p. 1.
Anthony King, ‘Foundations of Power’, in G. C. Edwards III, J. H. Kessel and B. A. Rockman (eds), Researching the Presidency: Vital Questions, New Approaches (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993) especially pp. 434–6 and 445–6.
B. A. Rockman, ‘America’s Departments of State: Irregular and Regular Syndromes of Policy Making’, American Political Science Review, 75 (December 1981), pp. 911–27.
E. Drew, On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).
R. E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: The Free Press, 1990) pp. 73–90.
T. J. Weko, The Politicizing Presidency: The White House Personnel Office, 1948–1994 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995).
B. A. Rockman, ‘Organizing the White House: On a West Wing and a Prayer’, Journal of Managerial Issues, 5 (Winter 1993) pp. 453–64. See especially on models of White House organization, S. Hess, Organizing the Presidency, 2nd edn (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1988).
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© 2000 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Rockman, B.A. (2000). Administering the Summit in the United States. In: Peters, B.G., Rhodes, R.A.W., Wright, V. (eds) Administering the Summit. Transforming Government. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62797-4_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62797-4_13
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