We find in interviews and archival records that bureaucrats prevented Reagan and Bush from implementing more strict abortion bans in U.S. foreign aid. Then, we show how those same presidents ensured Trump, and any future president, would not face the same problems.

We use a pre-registered panel survey, conducted prior to the 2020 election, to show that American presidents don’t tend to pay a penalty for acting unilaterally. Respondents don’t seem to care how policy is enacted, they care about the policy itself and whether the president succeeds in getting it done.

Using case studies of terrorist detention, police militarizaton, foregin embassy location, and government secrecy, along with an analysis of executive orders between 1937-2021, we explain when executive policymaking has long-term impact. We find, paradoxically, that areas presidents have most discretion over today do the most to constrain the actions of their successors tomorrow.

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Using an expert survey of current and former congressional staff, we show that partisan incentives do not reduce the informational content of exchanges between members of Congress and witnesses in oversight hearings.

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We examine the uptake of staff training in Congress using records of application, attendance, and employment. We show that staff acquire expertise when they are more secure in their jobs, when there are more opportunities to use that expertise against the executive branch, and also those who acquire expertise work in Congress longer.

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We survey experts in the fields of law, social science, and the humanities in order to estimate how much discretion presidents have in 54 policy areas. We then show these measures are associated with the frequency of executive action.

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We field a nationally representative, pre-registered survey to measure public tolerance for unilateral executive actions in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. We find executive action does not depress support for policies, regardless of the local-level severity of the crisis.

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I find that a presidential executive order that took back military equipment from local police had no detectable impact on crime or officer safety. I then use 3.6 million archived inventory records to show previous studies that find favorable effects for military equipment are likely biased by unobserved attrition and weapons transfers.

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Analyzing unilateral initiatives at the policy-level from 1993-2016, I show that conventional arguments about when presidents act alone are not supported, and propose thinking of these actions as “false fronts” — moves designed primarily to attract media attention that have little net impact on policy outcomes.

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We show that members of Congress who disagree with new rules proposed by the EPA use procedural requests to delay the process, and that these requests are concentrated among members with more experienced staff.

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Following the legalization of same-sex marriage in the US, we field a nationwide audit experiment of license granting offices, and find no evidence of discrimination against same-sex couples.

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Using records of constituent-service by members of Congress, we find that women, racial/ethnic minorities, and veterans are more likely to work on behalf of constituents with whom they share identities.

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I find that executive agencies tend to prioritize the oversight requests of members of the majority party in Congress, but that agencies with more political appointees tend to favor members of the president’s party.

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In contrast to patterns found in public hearings, I find that ideological disagreements have little impact on how vigorously members of Congress oversee executive agencies in private (e.g., through letters and calls).

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In an analysis of unilateral revisions to tariffs and quotas, we find evidence that U.S. presidents use the legal authority granted to them by Congress to favor politicallly valuable states and industries with protectionist orders.

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Presidents make policy without the explicit consent of Congress, but must get cooperation from unelected officials. I show how this basic agency problem complicates the apparent appeal of unilateralism, using gun violence research and post-9/11 security as examples.

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We show that major revisions in tariff policies by Congress typically led to dramatic losses by the majority party in next election. Our findings provide an additional explanation for the eventual delegation of broad trade authority to the president.

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We find that the direct, popular election of Senators led increased oversight of the executive branch when the Senate and presidency were controlled by different parties. This suggests that historically, oversight has partly motivated by partisan politics.

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We show that members of Congress on appropriations committees syphon off billions from mandatory programs in order to fund discretionary projects, and that this accounting trick is a strategic response to budget rules meant to reduce government spending.

I show that presidents have increasingly turned to ‘presidential memoranda’ to make policy without the explicit consent from Congress, and that patterns in this tool’s use are similar to other kinds of presidential directives (like executive orders).

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In this review, we highlight research divides in three prominent areas of bureaucratic politics: the selection and retention of bureaucratic personnel, oversight of bureaucratic activities, and opportunities for influence by actors external to the bureaucracy. Our survey reveals ways scholars from both the American and Comparative traditions can learn from one another.

We review the academic literature on presidential unilateralism and make recommendations for future research.

We review the academic literature on legislative productivity and make recommendations future research.

In a survey experiment on the regulation of commercial drones, we show that the way government makes policy matters for whether the public approves of it.

In a review of President Obama’s first term, we argue he has successfully used administrative tools to serve party goals.

We show that members of Congress who run for president are no worse as legislators, and on some dimensions, perform better than peers. Though they tend to be absent more as they run a campaign, importantly, they just as likely to try to check the executive branch while in Congress.

We show that politics influences the kinds of knowledge claims congressional investigators make in oversight reports, motivating partisan teams to make more unreliable statements.

We explain why presidents tend to hire people with communications experience over policy experts, and the White House has staff turnover higher than almost any other public organization.