A Government of Strangers: Executive Politics in Washington

by Hugh Heclo

Book Overview

"

How do political appointees try to gain control of the Washington bureaucracy? How do high-ranking career bureaucrats try to ensure administrative continuity? The answers are sought in this analysis of the relations between appointees and bureaucrats that uses the participants' own words to describe the imperatives they face and the strategies they adopt.

Shifting attention away form the well-publicized actions of the President, High Heclo...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815735359
• ISBN13: 9780815735359
• Release Date: June 1977
• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Not new, but still fully relevant

This book follows the history and function of relationships between the president and his hundreds of upper, appointed agency officials, and the million (?)federal employees who work below them. I suspect most of the dynamics and basic issues are still true in the early 2000's and I found the book very helpful. For example, good burocrats and rise to a certain management level and do a good job forever. if they ever promote above that level, though, they are considered political appointees and get canned by the next president. it's an interesting way to run a government.