Many standard models of political institutions frame outcomes as a function of the preferences of key decisionmakers. However, these models, and the empirical analyses they inspire, typically assume that decisionmakers can infer the identities and ideological locations of decisionmakers without...

Political scientists have long considered ideology, partisanship, and constituency in determining how members of the United States Congress make decisions. Meanwhile, psychologists have held that personality traits play central roles in decision-making. Here, we bridge these literatures by...

Previous studies of presidential appointments have consistently found that presidents place their most competent appointees into agencies responsible for policy issues high on their agendas. Using a survey with an embedded experimental manipulation, we examine whether members of the public, when...

We analyze presidential appointee positions subject to Senate-confirmation (PAS) without a confirmed appointee in office. These “vacant” positions are byproducts of American constitutional design, shaped by the interplay of institutional politics. Using a novel data-set, we analyze PAS...

While the importance of political appointments is a matter of consensus, theorists and empiricists generally focus on different considerations, such as ideology and confirmation duration respectively. More recently, there have been efforts to integrate empirical and theoretical scholarship but,...

Individuals who are more sensitive to negative outcomes from error are more likely to provide nonresponses in surveys. We argue Neurotics’ sensitivity to negative outcomes leads them to avoid gathering costly information and forming/reporting opinions about stimuli. Using data from the 2014...

Scholars have seemingly established that constituents hold “out of step” legislators electorally accountable. Empirically, however, such claims have not been based on measures placing districts and perceptions of legislators’ preferences in the same space. We remedy this using the 2006 and...

To what extent do presidents select appointees based upon campaign experience and connections? The answer to this question has important implications for our understanding of presidential management and political leadership. This paper presents a theory explaining where presidents place...

Much of the bureaucratic literature suggests that, when staffing the bureaucracy, executives want agents who are both responsive to their political needs and possess the competence needed to fulfill their directives. However, institutional barriers — such as the requirement for legislative...

Media accounts of presidential appointments have often characterized the ambassadorial appointments process as overtaken by patronage concerns, with the most attractive posts set aside for those responsible for the president’s election, few of whom have diplomatic experience. Here, using...