Politically appointed bureau chiefs result in less effective management than leaders drawn from civil service
By: David Campbell
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, questions linger about the extent to which flawed leadership at the highest levels of local, state and federal government may have contributed to the disaster in New Orleans.
A new study done by David Lewis, assistant professor of politics and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, may offer some answers.
The study is titled "Political Appointments, Bureau Chiefs, and Federal Management Performance." In it, Professor Lewis examines the relationship between political appointees and federal management performance.
Among his conclusions: Politically appointed bureau chiefs result in less effective management than leaders drawn from the civil service. He finds that career managers have more direct experience in their agencies and departments and longer tenures, and this translates into better management performance.
There is greater turnover in top posts with appointees, which he said is hard on long-term planning and institutional learning, and can result in leadership vacuums.
In 2004, the federal government employed about 3,200 presidential appointees out of 2.7 million federal civilian employees.
Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, to what extent did the number of political appointees in the Federal Emergency Management Agency contribute to the poor handling of the crisis? Further, how do political appointments affect management, not only in FEMA, but across the federal government?
According to Professor Lewis, it’s hard to attribute the entire outcome of the Katrina response to the success or failure of political appointees but the disaster in New Orleans does raise questions about whether there are too many political appointees in FEMA.
Professor Lewis said Congress periodically will call for reducing the number of politically appointed leadership posts, and said Katrina could put this back on the legislative agenda. "I suspect this will be an issue that will be with us for a while, at least until the congressional elections," he said.
His study makes several recommendations, among them reducing the number of political appointees. He also recommends that political candidates be selected based on experience, and that longer commitments by them be sought. Also recommended is an improvement and streamlining of the nomination process in order to reduce the vacancy time at agencies.
Following Katrina, he said, one of the things that was made clear about FEMA was that it has a lot of political appointees.
Professor Lewis said there were FEMA vacancies at the time of the hurricane. Because those posts are filled by political appointment, he said, "It means that, more than likely, those in important positions will not have the experience they need."