The US government employs more than two million civilian personnel through its Cabinet departments and executive agencies. In new research, Daniel A. N. Goldstein looks at what Donald Trump’s return to the White House this January may mean for the US federal bureaucracy and its effectiveness. He writes that with Trump’s political appointees set to advance policies counter to institutionalized goals and norms, federal agencies may see a temporary or even more permanent departure of mission-driven employees, potentially undermining agencies’ ability to fulfill their mission.
Less than two weeks after Donald Trump won re-election, The New York Times wrote: “President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday packed his ideal cabinet with another loyalist intent on upending the department they would lead…” From the Department of Education to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice to the Department of Health and Human Services, the proposed leaders of America’s public sector in the second Trump administration appear set to undermine the capacity of the federal bureaucracy.
How will Trump’s appointees affect the US federal bureaucracy?
This could come about by political appointees advancing policies that run counter to institutionalized goals and norms, such as eliminating the Justice Department’s long-established tradition of conducting criminal investigations independent of White House direction or intervention, altering scientific findings, or undercutting enforcement of environmental regulations. Leaders may even work to eliminate elements of the federal agencies they likely will soon lead. This goal is perhaps best exemplified by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, an advisory group to Trump led by the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X (formerly known as Twitter), Elon Musk, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, that aims to reduce the workforce until there are “…the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions.” While it can be difficult to fire federal employees, alternative methods can be used to direct “voluntary terminations”, such as forcing full-time return to work mandates or relocating government offices.
While the president-elect is well within his rights to propose political appointees for Senate approval, a key question is how government employees will respond to leaders who seem opposed to the basic missions of their public sector organizations. And to what extent will these appointees impact the performance of the American bureaucracy, both in the coming years and in the long-term?
What disruptive leaders can mean for government organisations
In new research, I draw on insights from the first Trump administration and similar populist regimes, such as that of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, to examine the consequences of public sector leaders who seek to undermine their organization’s legally mandated mission. Using a model, I consider an idealized but representative organization with a leader, mid-level supervisors, and lower-level workers. While supervisors and workers produce government output, such as enforcing regulations, the leader can shift career incentives by penalizing output that is consistent with institutionalized goals. Workers who are subordinate to such a disruptive leader are then forced to trade off their career incentives (which are tilted by the leader to discourage putting policies in place which are consistent with the institutionalized mission), their personal commitment to the mission of their organizations, and even their reputations among other coworkers when deciding how to enact policies. Faced with the dissatisfaction of enacting policy that is not aligned with their institution’s mission, or the potential career costs of enacting mission-aligned output against the wishes of leadership, employees may even leave the public sector altogether.
As Table 1 shows, the model charts three trajectories for organizations led by disruptive leaders in terms of their ability and actual performance to align with organizational goals: resistance, temporary reversal, and erosion. The resistance trajectory consists of employees continuing to pursue their agency’s institutionalized (i.e. statutory) goals, likely against the wishes of leadership. Such an outcome favors the alignment of the agency’s output with its institutional mission in both the short- and long-term. This is because the output remains aligned with the mission and mission-driven employees remain in the agency. In a temporary reversal, a disruptive leader succeeds in undermining mission-driven output. Critically, however, mission-aligned employees remain in the agency. This can facilitate a relatively quick rebound in agency output when more typical, mission-aligned leadership returns. The erosion trajectory is characterized by both impaired mission output and the exodus of mission-driven employees, leading to a more permanent loss of an organization’s ability to fulfill its mission.
Table 1 – Organization Trajectories
The importance of institutional norms and organizational culture
What determines the trajectory of a public agency? Among a variety of factors, I argue that a principal driver are the social norms within the agency. These norms determine what kind of behavior is socially acceptable among peers. If an organization has a culture oriented toward the pursuit of institutional goals, informal incentives, such as one’s reputation among colleagues, may diminish the relative importance of career incentives, which agency leaders can change directly upon assuming power. Thus, strong social norms oriented toward institutionalized missions may enhance incentives to resist institutional disruption.
However, such an organizational culture is likely to be fragile. Should a sufficient number of employees no longer follow their institutional mission or should enough mission-driven individuals leave agencies (and not be replaced by like-minded staff), a weakening of norms that unravels a culture of mission compliance would result. Mission output may then suffer and could lead to the erosion of mission capacity.
“Environmental Protection Agency building” by USEPA Environmental-Protection-Agency is United States government work
What the EPA’s past can tell us about the future with Trump
Given these guiding trajectories, what should we expect under a second Trump administration? Focusing on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), its stated mission is to “…protect human health and the environment”. Will it still be able to meet that goal?
Under the first Trump administration, despite unprecedented resistance, such as public statements by employees against agency leadership, concerns about politicized research and lingering negative impacts, such as undermined pollution enforcement, persisted well into the next administration, despite a transition to more typical leadership. This suggests at least a temporary reversal of mission-driven performance. Given the fragility of the mission-driven culture, there is the possibility of a more permanent erosion of capacity under the new administration. Should some key mission-oriented staff leave, an outcome that may be accelerated by strategies such as the relocation of offices, such a breakdown in institutional norms and culture may occur. Capacity may be further compromised if an organization is perceived as politicized and therefore less attractive to join, making it difficult to recruit qualified staff.
However, there may be encouraging parallels to be drawn from past attacks on the EPA. Under President Reagan, EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch Burford orchestrated reforms that in many ways surpassed what has occurred under the first Trump administration, such as targeting employees who were deemed too environmentally-minded. The result was widespread staff departures and a severely disrupted culture. Nonetheless, a series of more neutral leaders immediately following Administrator Gorsuch Burford eventually restored the agency’s ability to fulfill its legislated mission. Therefore, as long as the agencies continue to exist (and are not completely eliminated by legislation, as is being discussed with the Department of Education), the likelihood of a renewal of capacity is a distinct possibility. This may be a route back that is worth keeping in mind in the coming years.
- This article is based on the paper, “Reversals of Capacity: Norms, Culture, and Institutional Disruption” in the Journal of Politics.
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- Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.
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