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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2015
Courses in American Government, including those which focus specifically on the presidency, rarely grant much attention to the period of transition that follows the election of a new president. That is unfortunate, for the transition period reveals in acute detail some of the enduring difficulties presidents encounter in trying to impose their influence on the structure and performance of the executive branch. Transitions especially highlight the awkwardness of the in-and-outer system of leadership selection in the United States and should be regarded, therefore, as highly valuable sources of instruction.
This brief essay looks at the principal problems confronted by new administrations in staffing the executive branch. It identifies the contours and complexities of those problems and then suggests some options for coping with them. These options, and others which students might propose, should invite vigorous debate and discussion.
A modern president-elect who has not prepared in advance for staffing an administration will suffer serious and harmful delays in launching a new presidency. It is critically important that personnel identification begin before the election. Careful planning should afford opportunities for the new President to anticipate the normal problems of transition personnel selection and to prepare to cope with them.
An earlier version of this article was prepared for the Panel on the Presidency, National Academy of Public Administration. Grateful acknowledgement is made of the National Academy's support for this work.
1. See the comments of Jimmy Carter's personnel aide Miller, Arnie in Recruiting Presidential Appointees: A Conference of Presidential Personnel Assistants (Washington, DC: National Academy of Public Administration, 1984), p. 36 Google Scholar. The 1988 transition was an exception to the normal pattern. There was close and frequent cooperation between Robert Tuttle, the personnel director for the Reagan administration, and Chase Untermeyer, the personnel director for the Bush transition. This was, of course, the first postwar transition in which the new president and the old president were of the same party.
2. Quoted in Schott, Richard L. and Hamilton, Dagmar, “The Politics of Presidential Appointments in the Johnson Administration: Notes on Work in Progress,” paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, November 4, 1977, p. 6 Google Scholar.
3. See Recruiting Presidential Appointees: A Conference of Presidential Personnel Assistants (Washington, DC: National Academy of Public Administration, 1984)Google Scholar.
4. Commission on Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Salaries, The Quiet Crisis (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1985)Google Scholar.
5. National Academy of Public Administration, Leadership in Jeopardy (Washington, DC: National Academy of Public Administration, 1985)Google Scholar.
6. Havemann, Judith, “U.S. Pay Levels Blamed as Key Jobs Go Unfilled,” Washington Post, May 17, 1989 Google Scholar.
