President Trump and the Federal Personnel System: Theory and Practice

ABSTRACT President Donald Trump’s actions to assert control of the executive branch in his second term have been breathtaking in their speed, volume, and diversity. Trump’s actions raise the more general question of how to make sense of his presidency in historical perspective. Presidency scholars have contributed landmark research characterizing presidents based on personal characteristics, historic patterns, common incentives at work in different institutional configurations, and behaviors associated with populist leaders more generally. This article is a distillation of the theory behind Trump’s actions and describes the mechanics of how the president has asserted control over federal personnel in his second term. It concludes with the implications of these actions for governance and for our understanding of the Trump presidency in history more generally.