Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design: Political Insulation in the United States Government Bureaucracy, 1946-1997 - Hardcover

"...Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design is simply one of the finest scholarly treatises on U.S. executive politics to be published during the past decade." -- Presidential Studies Quarterly "Lewis has written a book that provides theoretical fodder for scholars in a variety of different fields. This is an excellent book on agency design, but it aso tells us a great deal about the separation of powers, the continuing struggle between the president and Congress over policy hegemony, and political control of the bureaucracy. It also is an important work on the institutional presidency. . . . As such this is an important work that will be widely cited and almost assuredly will be the basis for continuing research. . . This is an extremely important work that should have a major impact on the study of presidential-congressional and presidential-bureaucratic relations." -- Journal of Politics " . . . [A] highly impressive, well-written study of how agencies in the federal bureaucracy are designed . . ." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary History "Lewis does an excellent job of carefully analyzing the interactive effects of divided government, partisan majorities, and presidential approval." -- Perspectives on Politics

This book explains why, when, and how political actors create administrative agencies in such a way as to insulate them from political control, particularly presidential control.