Directing the Whirlwind

Preface

Alexander Hamilton famously warned “When a man … take[s]‌ every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion … It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”¹ The premise that the Trump Administration has an agenda to deconstruct the administrative state emanates from the campaign promise of candidate Trump, supported by articulations of deconstructive agenda by key policy advisors and Trump himself.² The rise and growth of the administrative state (or the federal bureaucracy) is conventionally tied to the expansion of public programs during Democratic presidential regimes.

Deregulation and the downsizing of the bureaucracy has thus been a hallmark of modern conservative presidents. In one sense then, Trump is simply advancing the conservative agenda and is repurposing the administrative state to promote the virtues of conservatism by rolling back social, economic, and environmental regulations. This is either a laudatory or lamentable development, depending on one’s ideological predisposition. Another interpretation is that the Trump Administration has moved beyond the dismantling of the liberal, progressive foundation of the New Deal and Great Society programs in which administrative authority is utilized to advance/support liberal policies and programs. It is instead attacking “root and branch” the legitimacy of the administrative state ←xix | xx→more generally defined as the “the agencies, people, and processes of the executive establishment” independent of direct executive control.³

Whether one cheers or decries the effort, we argue that the Trump Administration’s policies and practices have had very real and consequential impacts for public administration. This has happened in a surprisingly short amount of time, contrary to conventional wisdom about the bureaucratic stability and inertia. There are ideologically neutral reasons for potential concern from the perspective of public policy scholars. This is why we think our book matters and makes an important contribution to public policy and public administration scholarship. Whether one is ideologically liberal or conservative, there is something important afoot and the ramifications go beyond ideological policy debates. What the Trump Administration is “accomplishing” with its deconstruction effort is both beyond what other conservative presidents have attempted to do vis a vis regulatory rollbacks and downsizing and has moved into territory that fundamentally undermines the legitimacy of administrative authority and decision-making.