Monday, March 9th, George Krause (University of Pittsburgh) will present at the American Politics Workshop. His talk is titled “Can Bureaucratic Leadership Mitigate Common Agency Problems? Institutional Policy Conflict and the Political Calculus of Budgetary Support for U.S. Federal Agencies.” A link to the paper is here: Common Agency.Krause & O’Connell.UChicago American Politics Workshop Version.03-05-2015
Abstract
Political principals confront the dual coordination problem involving a competing political principal, as well as a government agency. This study advances a theoretical logic to understand the specific conditions that enable agency leaders to obtain political (budgetary) support for their agencies. Empirical predictions generated from this theory are tested using both presidential and congressional budgetary data from 31 U.S. federal government agencies from FY 1978 to FY 2009. The statistical evidence provides strong support for the theory by demonstrating that during times of unified party government, ‘conflictual’ agencies (i.e., agencies whose core policy mission is at ideological odds with a given political principal) can obtain greater budgetary support from political principals based as an agency leader’s loyalty to the president rises. Moreover, such agencies will also obtain comparatively greater budgetary resources under divided party government vis-à-vis unified party government when the agency leader exhibits weak loyalty to the president. That is, when common agency problems occur between political principals, agency leadership cannot effectively resolve vertical conflicts between politicians and agencies.
WHO: George Krause, Professor, Department of Political Science – University of Pittsburgh
WHEN: March 9th at Noon
WHERE: Pick Lounge (1st Floor)
**************************************************
Papers will be circulated in advance through our email list. To join the workshop email list visit: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/subscribe/americanpolitics
If you have any questions, please contact the workshop coordinators Allen L. Linton II (alinton@uchicago.edu) and Roberto Carlos (robertfcarlos@uchicago.edu).
**************************************************
