Aiding and Abetting the President: Agency Responsiveness to Presidential Electoral Interests

Do presidents use federal agencies as campaign resources? Scholars of distributive politics have long argued that political elites use public policy outcomes for electoral benefit. Of late, researchers have focused more closely on the president’s role in this process. However, little work examines how differences across agencies condition agency responsiveness to presidential electoral preferences. By using data on all federal grant from 1996-2008 as well as data on agency structure and staffing, this paper unites theories of agency design and politicization with the literature on distributive politics. In doing so, this paper demonstrates that the proximity of an agency to the White House— insulated independence—as well as ideology and politicization influence the president’s ability to target federal funds to electorally important states. In the end, this work offers two important contributions to our understanding of executive branch politics and public policy. First, I echo previous work that suggests that electorally driven presidents influence the allocation of federal funds in strategic way. Second, I demonstrate that agency design and structure condition the president’s ability to exercise power.