A Place at the Table: The Emerging Foreign Policy Roles of the White House Chief of Staff

Cohen, David B.; Dolan, Chris; Rosati, Jerel A.

doi:10.1080/07343460209507731

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Accordingly, scholars have sought to understand the keys of success and failure in the post. The recent literature that has developed around the office has tended to focus mostly on the variety of roles a White House COS can perform (e.g., see Buchanan, 1990;Burke, 2000;Cohen, 1997Cohen, Dolan, and Rosati, 2002;Cohen et al, 2008, Cohen, Vaughn, andVillalobos, 2012;Cohen and Krause, 2000;Ellis, 1994;Hart, 1995;Hess, 1988;Kernell and Popkin, 1986;Neustadt, 1999;Patterson, 2000Patterson, , 2008Pfiffner, 1993Pfiffner, , 1996Sullivan, 2004). Several major roles have emerged, capturing among them the key responsibilities of the office.…”

Section: Duties Of the Cosmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Chicago Clan: The Chiefs of Staff in the Obama White House

Cohen

Hult

Walcott

2012

Social Science Quarterly

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Objectives This article examines the roles, responsibilities, and performance of the first two White House chiefs of staff during the Obama administration: Rahm Emanuel and William Daley. Methods Data are drawn and analyzed from academic and media resources, original interviews conducted by the authors with former staff in the Obama White House, and public documents. Results Perhaps the most high‐profile chief of staff in history, Rahm Emanuel was an important, but at times, ineffective advisor to, and proxy of, the president. He also served as a sturdy guardian, despite evident disagreement on policy priorities and strategies. His focus on shorter term tactics and his weakness as an honest broker negatively impacted the Obama administration. Emanuel's successor, William Daley, initially brought needed discipline and focus to a White House riven by factions. Daley, however, lasted only a year as he never fully adjusted to the demands of the job nor did he appear to fully appreciate the depth of the partisan polarization and hostility in Washington. Conclusion The Obama administration's first two chiefs of staff had to navigate a challenging environment in an administration filled with strong personalities and tested by events including the financial crisis and recession, passage of the health‐care legislation, the 2010 midterm election debacle, the debt‐ceiling crisis, and a number of foreign policy challenges in the Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan. Though very different in terms of personality, style, and the roles they emphasized during their tenures, both chiefs of staff were largely ineffective, thus diminishing the performance of the president and administration.

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Section: Duties Of the Cosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For an examination of the chief of staff's emerging role in the national security process, seeCohen, Dolan, and Rosati (2002).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Chicago Clan: The Chiefs of Staff in the Obama White House

Cohen

Hult

Walcott

2012

Social Science Quarterly

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“…By appointing Andrew Card as chief of staff, Bush signaled his intention to promote a structured but not a rigidly hierarchical management system (Cohen, Dolan and Rosati 2002). Having served in the Reagan White House as well as three years as deputy chief of staff in the elder Bush's administration, Card had a great deal of Washington experience.…”

Section: Presidential Management Systems and Advisory Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The War About the War: Iraq and the Politics of National Security Advising in the G.W. Bush Administration's First Term

Dolan

Cohen

2006

Politics & Policy

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The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which the management system and foreign policy advisory structures of the George W. Bush Administration led the president to launch the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. We contend that the decision to attack Iraq was an outgrowth of the conflict that began when the administration's national security team was assembled after Bush's electoral victory and was a by‐product of the president's management style. We devote significant attention to the internal battles surrounding the decision for war between those who believe in a traditional multilateral approach (realists) to world politics and those who believe in a Pax Americana built on unilateralism (neocons). The article concludes that in addition to the way President Bush organized the decision‐making process, his propensity for delegating responsibility to others combined with policy making structures built largely on consensus and personality factors, as opposed to procedures and processes, ultimately drove the White House toward the use of military force in Iraq.

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“…At the same time, it should be noted that starting with Alexander Haig in the Nixon White House, some chiefs of staff have become deeply involved in foreign‐policy deliberations. Donald Regan, Reagan's second chief of staff, was made a nonstatutory member of the NSC, for example, and Leon Panetta, Clinton's second chief of staff, attended the president's national security briefings and was a member of the principals committee as was Andrew Card after the September 11 terrorist attacks (Cohen, Dolan, and Rosati 2002, 134, 136).…”

Section: Expanding the Broker Role?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neutral/Honest Broker Role in Foreign‐Policy Decision Making: A Reassessment

Burke

2005

Pres Stud Q

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This article examines the impact of the “neutral” or “honest” broker role in presidential decision making, particularly as applied to the job of National Security Council adviser. It provides further evidence of the positive and continuing contribution of the role to effective decision making, which has been expressed both in theory (Alexander George's formulation of the related concept of the “managerial custodian” in the 1970s) and in practice (the broker role of the Eisenhower‐era NSC special assistants). At the same time, it considers the feasibility of additional tasks such as policy advocacy, public visibility, political watchdog, and operational assignments, which have been embraced, to varying degrees, by more recent NSC advisers but were largely absent in the Eisenhower era and rejected by George as appropriate to the custodian role. The article also examines the applicability of the broker role in light of differing presidential decision‐making needs, different advisory structures, and the issue of bureaucratic leverage and personal influence. Attention to the broker role remains relevant not only in understanding classic decision failures (the expansion of troop commitments in Vietnam in 1965) and successes (Indochina in 1954) but in gaining perspective on more recent decisions, such as Iran‐Contra during the Reagan years and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and issues surrounding its postwar reconstruction in the George W. Bush presidency.

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A Place at the Table: The Emerging Foreign Policy Roles of the White House Chief of Staff

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

The Chicago Clan: The Chiefs of Staff in the Obama White House

The Chicago Clan: The Chiefs of Staff in the Obama White House

The War About the War: Iraq and the Politics of National Security Advising in the G.W. Bush Administration's First Term

The Neutral/Honest Broker Role in Foreign‐Policy Decision Making: A Reassessment

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