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Presidential Power versus Bureaucratic Intransigence: The Influence of the Nixon Administration on Welfare Policy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Ronald Randall
Ronald Randall*
Affiliation:
University of Toledo
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Abstract

Many observers routinely assert the relative weakness of presidents before the bureaucracy. The research of this study, guided by a structuralist theory of organizations, provides evidence of the Nixon administration's power to change policy, even over the opposition of the bureaucracy, concerning the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. The study demonstrates that the management tools available to the president and top officials, when used adroitly, are more powerful than are generally presumed. That presidents can affix their indelible stamps on policy by short-circuiting the legislative process and dominating the bureaucracy is more than a remote possibility.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 795 - 810
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1979

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Footnotes

*

Martha Derthick, Jane S. Randall, and David S. Wilson provided helpful comments. Part of the research for this study was conducted while the author held a University of Toledo Summer Faculty Research Fellowship.

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