Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users, please click the view more button below to purchase a copy of this dissertation from Proquest.
(Some titles may also be available free of charge in our Open Access Dissertation Collection, so please check there first.)
The president as administrator: The role of political beliefs in presidential decision-making
Abstract
This research seeks to discover why and how presidents choose their administrative strategies. The hypothesis advanced argues the political beliefs of a president make some administrative strategies more appealing than others. Chapter One offers a critique of current explanations of presidential behavior, including the "classic" models of the "rational decider" and "personality" models of decision making. A third model, that of "political belief," is described and discussed. The chapter concludes by arguing this belief model can escape the methodological problems plaguing the other "classic" approaches to explaining behavior. Chapters Two, Three and Four test this model by examining the reorganizational and budget decisions of the Nixon, Carter and Reagan administrations. Chapter Two demonstrates that Richard Nixon's belief in the individual's power to control one's life best explains his decisions to decentralize government through reorganization and revenue sharing. Chapter Three concludes that Jimmy Carter's belief in a progressive agenda to democratize government best explains his decision to reorganize government from the "bottom-up" and through the use of zero base budgeting. Chapter Four finds that Ronald Reagan's decisions to reorganize the executive branch from "within" and to alter the budget process are best explained by his belief in government as an agent for social change, but only in specific areas of activity. Chapter Five concludes the research by briefly examining the Bush presidency, and concludes that Bush, like Jimmy Carter, is a president more concerned with "process" than "policy." Each "classic" methodology is demonstrated to be flawed, and the "belief" model is shown to best explain the behavior of each president. For that reason, the project closes, political science under-appreciates the role of political belief in decision making.
Subject Area
Political science|Public administration
Recommended Citation
Smailes, David Alan, "The president as administrator: The role of political beliefs in presidential decision-making" (1992). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9219499.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9219499