The responsiveness of government agencies to elected officials is a central question in democratic governance. A key source of variation in responsiveness is agency structure. Yet scholars often view agencies as falling into broad structural categories (e.g., cabinet departments or independent commissions) or fixate on some features of design (e.g., "for cause" protections). I develop new estimates of structural independence based on new data on 50 different structural features of 321 federal agencies in the federal executive establishment. Using a Bayesian latent variable model, I estimate independence on two dimensions: limits on the appointment of key agency decision makers and limits on political review of agency policy. I illustrate the value of this new measure by using it to examine how structure affects political influence and how agency independence can vary over time.

Employee turnover is a key area for public administration research, but one about which there is much still to be learned. Insights from an extensive body of research on employee turnover in a specifi c area of the public sector-public education-contributes to the understanding of employee mobility in public organizations more generally. Th e authors present a conceptual framework for understanding employee turnover that is grounded in economic theories of labor supply and demand, which have formed the foundation of many studies of teacher turnover. Th e main fi ndings of this body of work are documented, noting connections to the literature on public employee turnover, lessons that can be learned, and potential new areas for empirical inquiry for scholars of turnover in the public sector. Practitioner Points• An extensive research base on turnover among public school teachers can be useful for policy makers, practitioners, and researchers interested in the factors that lead some public employees to remain in their positions or organizations while others leave. • Public employee turnover has both labor supply and labor demand dimensions, meaning that fully understanding turnover requires consideration of both the factors that aff ect employees' work decisions, such as compensation and working conditions, and the factors that aff ect organizations' staffi ng decisions, such as budget reductions and connections between performance appraisal and job dismissal. • Aside from considering supply and demand, research on teacher turnover suggests a number of other insights for investigating public employee turnover more generally, including the importance of diff erentiating mobility and attrition, of gathering data on actual turnover and not just turnover intention, and of considering a wide variety of employee and organizational factors.O ver the past few decades, researchers have built a robust literature on turnover and mobility among public school teachers. Th is research base is large enough, in fact, to have sparked both synthetic review articles and meta-analyses summarizing its fi ndings (e.g., Borman and Dowling 2008; Guarino, Santibañez, and Daley 2006). A notable feature of the development of this literature is that, despite the fact that public school teachers are the most numerous public employees, it has occurred quite apart from the growth of the public administration literature on turnover among public employees more generally. Authored primarily by researchers in the fi elds of education and economics and published in journals aimed at those audiences, teacher turnover studies rarely seem to inform (or to be informed by) research into public sector turnover. Th e failure of these two bodies of work to speak to one another is unfortunate given similarities between schools and other public organizations, between teachers and other public professionals (Lipsky 1980), and even between annual rates of employee turnover in the two areas, which recent estimates place at 13 percent to 14 percent for federal emp...

Does the president or Congress have more influence over policymaking by the bureaucracy? Despite a wealth of theoretical guidance, progress on this important question has proven elusive due to competing theoretical predictions and severe difficulties in measuring agency influence and oversight. We use a survey of federal executives to assess political influence, congressional oversight, and the policy preferences of agencies, committees, and the president on a comparable scale. Analyzing variation in political influence across and within agencies reveals that Congress is less influential relative to the White House when more committees are involved. While increasing the number of involved committees may maximize the electoral benefits for members, it may also undercut the ability of Congress as an institution to collectively respond to the actions of the presidency or the bureaucracy.

Does the president or Congress have more influence over policymaking by the bureaucracy? Despite a wealth of theoretical guidance, progress on this important question has proven elusive due to competing theoretical predictions and severe difficulties in measuring agency influence and oversight. We use a survey of federal executives to assess political influence, congressional oversight, and the policy preferences of agencies, committees, and the president on a comparable scale. Analyzing variation in political influence across and within agencies reveals that Congress is less influential relative to the White House when more committees are involved. While increasing the number of involved committees may maximize the electoral benefits for members, it may also undercut the ability of Congress as an institution to collectively respond to the actions of the presidency or the bureaucracy.

Although a commonly recognized pathway to the U.S. Senate is through the U.S. House of Representatives, only four African American House members have run for the Senate since the passage of the 17th Amendment, and none have been elected. We examine why so few African American House members run for the Senate. Using an original dataset that includes all House members in the 102nd through the 110th Congresses, we explore the decision of House members, particularly African American House members, to run for the Senate. Despite the fact that so few African American House members have run for the Senate, our results raise doubts about the existence of direct race‐based explanations. Instead, we demonstrate with mediation analysis that contextual factors linked to race, such as state population, ability to raise campaign funds, and ideological extremity, play an intervening role in the strategic decision to run. These findings have normative implications for descriptive representation.

In contrast to the dramatic growth in the size and influence of the executive branch over the past 40 years, congressional committee staffing levels are at an all-time low. Faced with growing demands to produce legislation and to conduct oversight of executive branch policymaking, Congress can and does supplement its existing staff by borrowing personnel, known as detailees, from federal agencies. Using an original dataset of detailees from 1997 to 2015, we analyze the degree to which congressional committees rely on detailees to increase legislative capacity. We find that committees in the House and Senate use detailees in different ways to further both legislative and oversight initiatives.

One of the fundamental principles of American governance is that each branch of government has the necessary constitutional means and motives to resist the encroachment of the other branches. Oversight is an important part of this system. In this article, we identify the legal principles that govern legislative and judicial oversight of the executive branch. These legal parameters of oversight influence informal negotiations between the branches over executive information and have important consequences for the exercise of executive power.

Across disciplines and contexts, scholars vary in their conception of politicization. This variation reveals a need for more consistent concept definition and measurement of the extent to which politics influence administration. We engage this need by providing a typology of politicization that includes consideration of the actions of elected officials, political appointees, and merit‐based administrators. We then assess dynamic differences across the typology in the United States using personnel records spanning four decades, measures of insulation derived from statutory language, and three surveys of senior federal executives. Our analysis provides a research agenda for scholars who seek to examine the politicization of the executive branch.