My guests today have thought very deeply about presidential attempts to control the administrative state. William Howell and Terry Moe are co-authors of a book called, Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency. They’re both political scientists. Terry is a professor of political science at Stanford, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Will is the Dean of the School of Government and Policy at Johns Hopkins University. There’s a fair amount of disagreement in this conversation, and I hope the result is pretty entertaining, and hopefully enlightening. [...]
Will you briefly articulate how you are defining democracy in the context of this book, and the threat you think Trump poses?
Howell: In some ways, our definition is quite conventional. It recognizes the importance of free and fair elections, and checks and balances. There are two dimensions we also want to bring into view, that offer a thicker understanding about what democracy requires. One is the rule of law. It’s hard to imagine a flourishing democracy without it — so violations of the rule of law are violations of democracy. Another important piece is that you have institutions that can effectively govern — translating the broad ambitions and intent written into legislation into action. Democracies are not just debating societies. They also attend to wishes expressed by a polity. That depends upon well-functioning governing institutions. When you lay siege to such institutions, you imperil democracy itself.
We’ve been very interested on Statecraft in well-functioning institutions that deliver on their commitments. But I’ve never combined that in my view of democracy. Is a democracy that has lower state capacity less of a democracy?
Howell: If you have a government that is routinely incapable of solving problems the public wants to see solved, you are vulnerable to the entreaties of a demagogue who will step in and say, “The state, the parties, these small-d democratic institutions have failed you. I will be the one that delivers for you.” Persistent failure opens up space for a populist strongman to step in. This was the dominant theme of the second book Terry and I wrote, Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy, wherein we talk about how ineffective government is vulnerable to the entreaties of a populist strongman that will not just challenge democracy, but transgress it.
Moe: If a democracy is going to be meaningful, it has to have a democratic policymaking process, and an administrative state that can carry out those policies. If you have a government that is tearing down the administrative state and undermining its capacity for effectiveness, you are undermining the meaning and effectiveness of democracy.
How should we picture the powers of the president before the Progressive Era?
Moe: To a large extent, we had congressional government. The parties were extremely strong from Andrew Jackson on, at all levels of government. Politicians were captives — products of those machines. Presidents weren’t above all that. It was a system that had almost no executive branch. The idea that the president would ride herd over all these agencies — that had programs, experts, and authority presidents could use to gain power — those things weren’t there.
What was not in existence in this period?
Moe: The government wasn’t doing all that much. Most of the employees of the federal government were mailmen. All the agencies you associate with the administrative state weren’t there, except for the Post Office, and a few things like that. The massive social upheaval at the end of the 1800s — industrialization, urbanization, immigration — transformed and disrupted American society, and led to demands for a government that worked and would do something — because all sorts of problems were being generated by an industrialized society.
People wanted solutions. How could you get that? You needed to have, “good government.” How could you get that? That’s where the Progressive movement came from. It was an effort to create a positive government that would address these pressing social problems. That’s how we got a presidency that was much more powerful. Teddy Roosevelt is the classic progressive president, then Woodrow Wilson.
Congress had been a cesspool of interest group influence and corruption. What they wanted was a bureaucracy that could carry out policies, be staffed with experts, and behave in a nonpartisan way — to do the scientifically objective thing and administer policy. Some of this was idealized, but that’s what modern government is about — having an administrative state filled with experts, hired on the basis of merit, who are capable of carrying out public policies, led by a president who has actual power. Not all power, but more power than in the past.
Howell: There’s a direct way in which this proliferation of agencies with all kinds of capacity, expertise, and personnel expands presidential power, because suddenly the presidency has access to capacity. When you look at the ambition behind a law — now we might be able to do something. From the word go, this administrative state is sitting within the second branch, and the president sits atop it.
Additionally, presidents can’t count on bureaucrats to do their bidding. Just because you have this expertise within these administrative agencies — how do you know they’re going to do the things that the president wants? From Franklin D. Roosevelt, even to Ronald Reagan, you see efforts by presidents from both parties to build out instruments of control, and strategies that will increase the odds that actions within all those far-flung agencies are aligned with the interests of the president. [...]
What are the tools that presidents in this period build to try and get control?
Howell: The two big categories are centralization and politicization. Centralization involves the effort to bring decision-making into closer proximity to the White House. You see the rise of the Executive Office of the President (EOP), and things like policy czars — so that the president can keep an eye on what’s being decided, and ensure it aligns with his policy preferences.
The other move is to appoint people whose policy preferences align with your own to oversee those agencies. You could see a tension between politicization and the expertise that justifies the rise of the modern administrative state. But the politicization is in the service of expanding presidential control.
Moe: The first thing that was created was the Executive Office of the President, under Roosevelt. That became the house to hold agencies created for the president to control the bureaucracy.
Before the Executive Office of the President — which is now 1,700 staff in the Eisenhower Building and the West Wing — who is making sure that what the president wants is happening?
Moe: This was all new. The progressives didn’t build much of an administrative state. It was the New Deal that exploded it. The EOP was created in 1939, right in the middle of this thing. It’s chaos. They’re creating this gigantic thing, filled with all these new agencies. How do you even think about controlling it? That was what they were up against.
What they eventually arrived at was: “We’re going to construct an Executive Office of the President, and we’re going to put stuff in there that allows the president to use little units to control the bureaucracy.” The first one they moved in was the Bureau of the Budget, which is now called the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It used to be in the Treasury Department, created in 1921. It became a purely presidential agency. In addition, there’s now:
All these units are mechanisms of presidential control. You have the administrative state, but then you have the president with his own bureaucracy that works for him to control everything else.
Howell: In some ways, our definition is quite conventional. It recognizes the importance of free and fair elections, and checks and balances. There are two dimensions we also want to bring into view, that offer a thicker understanding about what democracy requires. One is the rule of law. It’s hard to imagine a flourishing democracy without it — so violations of the rule of law are violations of democracy. Another important piece is that you have institutions that can effectively govern — translating the broad ambitions and intent written into legislation into action. Democracies are not just debating societies. They also attend to wishes expressed by a polity. That depends upon well-functioning governing institutions. When you lay siege to such institutions, you imperil democracy itself.
We’ve been very interested on Statecraft in well-functioning institutions that deliver on their commitments. But I’ve never combined that in my view of democracy. Is a democracy that has lower state capacity less of a democracy?
Howell: If you have a government that is routinely incapable of solving problems the public wants to see solved, you are vulnerable to the entreaties of a demagogue who will step in and say, “The state, the parties, these small-d democratic institutions have failed you. I will be the one that delivers for you.” Persistent failure opens up space for a populist strongman to step in. This was the dominant theme of the second book Terry and I wrote, Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy, wherein we talk about how ineffective government is vulnerable to the entreaties of a populist strongman that will not just challenge democracy, but transgress it.
Moe: If a democracy is going to be meaningful, it has to have a democratic policymaking process, and an administrative state that can carry out those policies. If you have a government that is tearing down the administrative state and undermining its capacity for effectiveness, you are undermining the meaning and effectiveness of democracy.
How should we picture the powers of the president before the Progressive Era?
Moe: To a large extent, we had congressional government. The parties were extremely strong from Andrew Jackson on, at all levels of government. Politicians were captives — products of those machines. Presidents weren’t above all that. It was a system that had almost no executive branch. The idea that the president would ride herd over all these agencies — that had programs, experts, and authority presidents could use to gain power — those things weren’t there.
What was not in existence in this period?
Moe: The government wasn’t doing all that much. Most of the employees of the federal government were mailmen. All the agencies you associate with the administrative state weren’t there, except for the Post Office, and a few things like that. The massive social upheaval at the end of the 1800s — industrialization, urbanization, immigration — transformed and disrupted American society, and led to demands for a government that worked and would do something — because all sorts of problems were being generated by an industrialized society.
People wanted solutions. How could you get that? You needed to have, “good government.” How could you get that? That’s where the Progressive movement came from. It was an effort to create a positive government that would address these pressing social problems. That’s how we got a presidency that was much more powerful. Teddy Roosevelt is the classic progressive president, then Woodrow Wilson.
Congress had been a cesspool of interest group influence and corruption. What they wanted was a bureaucracy that could carry out policies, be staffed with experts, and behave in a nonpartisan way — to do the scientifically objective thing and administer policy. Some of this was idealized, but that’s what modern government is about — having an administrative state filled with experts, hired on the basis of merit, who are capable of carrying out public policies, led by a president who has actual power. Not all power, but more power than in the past.
Howell: There’s a direct way in which this proliferation of agencies with all kinds of capacity, expertise, and personnel expands presidential power, because suddenly the presidency has access to capacity. When you look at the ambition behind a law — now we might be able to do something. From the word go, this administrative state is sitting within the second branch, and the president sits atop it.
Additionally, presidents can’t count on bureaucrats to do their bidding. Just because you have this expertise within these administrative agencies — how do you know they’re going to do the things that the president wants? From Franklin D. Roosevelt, even to Ronald Reagan, you see efforts by presidents from both parties to build out instruments of control, and strategies that will increase the odds that actions within all those far-flung agencies are aligned with the interests of the president. [...]
What are the tools that presidents in this period build to try and get control?
Howell: The two big categories are centralization and politicization. Centralization involves the effort to bring decision-making into closer proximity to the White House. You see the rise of the Executive Office of the President (EOP), and things like policy czars — so that the president can keep an eye on what’s being decided, and ensure it aligns with his policy preferences.
The other move is to appoint people whose policy preferences align with your own to oversee those agencies. You could see a tension between politicization and the expertise that justifies the rise of the modern administrative state. But the politicization is in the service of expanding presidential control.
Moe: The first thing that was created was the Executive Office of the President, under Roosevelt. That became the house to hold agencies created for the president to control the bureaucracy.
Before the Executive Office of the President — which is now 1,700 staff in the Eisenhower Building and the West Wing — who is making sure that what the president wants is happening?
Moe: This was all new. The progressives didn’t build much of an administrative state. It was the New Deal that exploded it. The EOP was created in 1939, right in the middle of this thing. It’s chaos. They’re creating this gigantic thing, filled with all these new agencies. How do you even think about controlling it? That was what they were up against.
What they eventually arrived at was: “We’re going to construct an Executive Office of the President, and we’re going to put stuff in there that allows the president to use little units to control the bureaucracy.” The first one they moved in was the Bureau of the Budget, which is now called the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It used to be in the Treasury Department, created in 1921. It became a purely presidential agency. In addition, there’s now:
All these units are mechanisms of presidential control. You have the administrative state, but then you have the president with his own bureaucracy that works for him to control everything else.
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