Networking in the Shadow of Hierarchy: Public Policy, the Administrative Presidency, and the Neoadministrative State

Abstract

This article argues that developments associated with governance reforms in the United States fundamentally have altered the administrative state and pose new and formidable challenges for the administrative presidency. Existing literature on the administrative presidency is limited in its ability to help conceptualize these changes, to understand the challenges that this “neoadministrative state” poses for presidents and political appointees, and to discern if and how they are coping or can cope with them. A review of the burgeoning and multidisciplinary management literature on executive leadership in the neoadministrative state suggests that presidents and scholars must reconceptualize the administrative presidency. They will have to rethink the strategy's ends (what presidents need to accomplish to advance their agendas), its focus (what its tools are and how to apply them), and its locus (where these tools are applied). To inform this effort, a second generation of research on the administrative presidency is needed.