Presidential Cabinets: The Cabal of Executive Power

Cabinet Turnover and Executive Power

How can Presidential Cabinet turnover reveal a President’s ability to govern effectively, highlight their view on exercising executive power, and illuminate their social and institutional relationship with his Cabinet? Cabinet turnover, when uncovered, can illustrate how a President utilizes their Cabinet by seeing if a President delegates or chooses to keep his power strictly within the realm of the oval office.  Analyzing how a President interacts with his Cabinet is crucial when thinking about a President’s leadership ability. By using the Constitution and the Federalist papers, along with many scholarly sources on contemporary presidential Cabinet turnover rates, there are a few reasons as to why Presidential turnover rates have increased over time. Cabinet members either have poorly deeply rooted personal relations with the President, they aim to seek higher office. They can find themselves disagreeing with the President on a political and sometimes ideologically level. Additionally, cabinet members have resigned for personal reasons, died in office, and depending on who is President and their model of executive power, some Presidents want to consolidate their power, which results in firing their Cabinet secretaries.  From these findings layered with in-depth rooted analysis, we have a better understanding of how high rates of cabinet turnover can lead to a tumultuous and chaotic government with no political or social capital to execute its agenda, a lack of credibility among the American People, and an absence of governmental cooperation among the branches of government. 

Prior Knowledge

Political Scientists have studied and analyzed cabinet turnover and given us an extensive background on not just examining Presidential Cabinet turnover but understanding the causes and effects of them. Furthermore, how these causes and effects are specifically related to understand the office of the Presidency, in particular the occupant. Scholars have found that Presidential leadership can be significantly enhanced or hindered based on the relationship a President has with their Cabinet. And we don’t just mean a personal or social relationship, but the President’s institutional relationship with the Cabinet as an institutional extension of executive power and effectiveness. Social relationships between Presidents and their Cabinet members can also result in high rates of Cabinet turnover. History has shown that Cabinet members use their status in a President’s administration as a stepping stone to seek higher office. However, history has also shown that personal and social relations can also result in Presidents removing many Cabinet members.

High rates of Cabinet turnover can reveal a President’s need to consolidate executive authority and highlight the ideological differences Presidents have with their department heads. Scholars have argued that Cabinet turnover is detrimental to a President’s ability to govern and effectiveness to communicate their message, furthermore cause dysfunction within the executive branch leading to a lack of institutional memory, executing policies, and lead to a centralized model of executive power. 

In the modern era, there have been many studies done by scholars and in-depth analysis of Presidential Cabinet turnover. Some Constitutional scholars argue that Cabinet turnover has increased since the 1970s. They believe that Presidents grapple with campaigning and governing. During Presidential campaigns, candidates make broad promises of change. Once elected, they have to appoint a Cabinet that will execute those changes. Whether that truly happens or not is irrelevant. Essentially, Presidents reward those who helped them get elected. They can do this by giving them positions in the White House, particularly in the Cabinet. However, people who are effective at campaigning are not always effective at governing. Furthermore, high Presidential turnover rates can “lead to a loss of institutional memory within the presidential branch, and makes it more difficult for presidential aides to communicate with their senior counterparts in federal departments and agencies, and in other branches of government.” (Tenpas, 2001) 

Regarding a contemporary political setting, many scholars have argued that Cabinet turnover can reflect on the President’s ability to govern effectively. Many political scientists present the argument that more modern Presidents have experienced difficulty implementing their agendas and exciting presidential leadership because of their inability to delegate coupled with the obsession to consolidate presidential power. In their view, high Cabinet turnover rates not only diminishes the credibility of the President but stuns their effectiveness at governing as well. The centralization of executive authority in an effort to bypass bureaucratic channels can lead to a counterproductive executive that ends up alienating members of its own branch, specifically Cabinet secretaries. The view of Presidential leadership, in their view, needs to be reevaluated as Presidents need to have Cabinet appointments to make their decisions and judgments, as well to achieve their goals in different sectors of the country.  “If the president wants to run government like a business, he must fill appointed positions. Running a government like a business requires that he state clear goals and define bedrock functions and then refocus structure, process, and human capital on core mission and goals. The president needs appointees in place to communicate his goals.” (Lewis, 2018)

Continuity and Change Over Time

The reasoning behind measuring time in office in years rather than terms is because using terms produces oversimplified and inaccurate results explained without proper context surrounding each Presidency. 

Ideally, a President would fair better if they spent a longer amount of time in office, but had a lower turnover. According to the results, the inverse is true, the more time a President spends in office, the more turnover they have, which makes sense. One important finding in these results is that many Presidents that served earlier in American history are below the trendline.  The main reason behind this is because Cabinets used to be a lot smaller than they are now. That said, smaller Cabinets don’t automatically mean Iower turnover. For example, in Figure 1, President Washington served 7.8493151 years in office and had a Cabinet turnover of 7 Cabinet members. In contrast, President Kennedy only served 2.8383562 years in office and had a Cabinet turnover of 3 members. In general, Cabinet turnover is directly proportional to how many years a President has held the office.

The relationship between years in office and Cabinet turnover has produced similar results across party lines. The second graph shows the results calculated by the total years a given party held the Presidency and the sum of the turnover of all Presidents of that Party. Because the Unaffiliated, Federalist, Democratic-Republican, and Whig Parties had relatively short-lived political prominence, let alone total years controlling the Presidency, they appear very close together on the graph. 

Throughout American history, there have been 15 Presidents from the Democratic Party and 19 Presidents from the Republican Party. That said, it would make sense that Republicans would have a higher amount of turnover. As noted in the first graph, more years in office does not automatically mean that turnover is higher. There have just been more Republican administrations than Democratic administrations. The difference in the total years controlling the Presidency between the Democrats and Republicans is minimal. The Democrats are only 0.1107582 points (≈ 40 days) higher than the Republicans for years holding the Presidency. This result may be because President Trump still has until January 2021 to complete a four-year term, and the years counted in this survey, for “Chronological List of Presidents, First Ladies, and Vice Presidents of the United States.” Prints and Photographs Reading Room. Library of Congress, 2019. https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/057_chron.html. 

Dickinson, Matthew J., and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas. “Explaining Increasing Turnover Rates among Presidential Advisers, 1929-1997.” The Journal of Politics 64, no. 2 (2002): 434–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2508.00133. 

Lewis, David E., Patrick Bernhard, and Emily You. “President Trump as Manager: Reflections on the First Year.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 48, no. 3 (2018): 480–501. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12478. 

President Trump, in particular, was only counted until Election Day of 2020.  

The mean numbers, however, tell a different story. We calculated the results in the third graph by the total years in the office and the total turnover by Presidents of a given party divided by affiliated presidents of that party. The third graph shows very different results from the second graph since the number of presidents from each party is counted. For example, George Washington is the only Unaffiliated President. This results in Unaffiliated Presidents’ point on the graph is determined only by the variables concerning the Washington Administration. The same goes for the Federalist Presidents since John Adams was the only President affiliated with the Federalist Party.

The adjustment of the results meant dividing the number of years a party controls the Presidency and the total turnover by all the Presidents of that party by the number of affiliated Presidents of the said party respectively. The results came out very different in comparison the raw results (see above). As shown in the graph below, the mean turnover is very close among Democrat and Republican presidents. As seen in the first graph, the relationship between years in office and turnover is directly proportional, but by looking across party lines, the impact of each variable balances out. 

Closing Thoughts

While this study confirms the relationship between a President’s time in office and their Cabinet’s turnover, it is crucial to understand that there are plenty of extraneous factors contributing to these results, which should not necessarily be overlooked.

The reason to show this study results on a scatter plot allows for better analysis of the relationship between years in office and turnover. It also encourages straying away from treating each President’s result the same way. Each administration faces unique challenges under unique circumstances, which could be the underlying reasons behind a President’s point on the scatterplot. This study can be a gateway to study underlying factors behind turnover under different presidential administrations and turnover under other administrations, such as why Cabinet members resign or get fired, and the change in turnover conditions as the Cabinet continues to expand.

With this data, we know that the turnover with Cabinet members includes institutional memory, new administration, political reasons, personal reasons, and fundamental disagreements with the President or others within the Cabinet or administration. 

It is essential to note the Presidential Cabinet is a way for Presidents to carry out their agenda on multiple fronts in various departments. Seeing how effective a President’s Cabinet is can reflect how effective the President is at his job. It also gives the American public a hint into how they govern and lead. 

We’ve seen that too much turnover within an administration can lead to disunity and disorganization within the administration. Examples are Trump and Jackson. However, we’ve also noticed that keeping certain members despite their contradicting views can help Presidents get a more well-rounded view of situations. Examples are Washington and Kennedy. 

If an Administration is viewed as not having consistent Cabinet membership, the scrutiny can come back on the President. That could range from issues of not being able to govern effectively or to execute policy. This can also reveal a President’s attitudes towards disagreement and how he handles that. On the other hand, some Cabinet members might leave their positions for reasons that are not necessarily the President’s fault, like taking a break from public service, or an interest in running public office, to name some examples.  The Presidential image is crucial to a President’s persuasive power, specifically their social and political capital.

Work Cited.

Dickinson, Matthew J, and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas. “Login to Access Library Resources.” Login to Access Library Resources: Trexler Library | Muhlenberg College, June 22, 2001. https://www-journals-uchicago-edu.muhlenberg.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdf/10.1111/1468-2508.00133. 

Lewis, David E, Patrick Bernhard, and Emily You. “Login to Access Library Resources.” Login to Access Library Resources: Trexler Library | Muhlenberg College, August 30, 2018. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.muhlenberg.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1111/psq.12478?sid=worldcat.org. 

“Chronological List of Presidents, First Ladies, and Vice Presidents of the United States.”
Prints and Photographs Reading Room. Library of Congress, 2019. https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/057_chron.html.

Dickinson, Matthew J., and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas. “Explaining Increasing Turnover Rates among Presidential Advisers, 1929-1997.” The Journal of Politics 64, no. 2 (2002): 434–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2508.00133.

Lewis, David E., Patrick Bernhard, and Emily You. “President Trump as Manager: Reflections on the First Year.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 48, no. 3 (2018): 480–501. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12478

“Cabinet Room.” Accessed December 9, 2020. http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/west-wing/cabinet-room.htm. 

Wulf, Karin. “The President’s Cabinet Was an Invention of America’s First President.” Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, April 7, 2020. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/presidents-cabinet-was-invention-americas-first-president-180974611/. 

Authors: Ben Gotian and Zaire Carter