CZARS IN THE WHITE HOUSE: THE RISE OF POLICY CZARS AS PRESIDENTIAL MANAGEMENT TOOLS
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12277 |
| Author | Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen |
CZARS IN THE WHITE HOUSE: THE RISE OF POLICY CZARS AS PRESIDENTIAL
MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Justin S. Vaughn and José D. Villalobos
University of Michigan Press, 264 pp., £70.59, ISBN: 978–0472119585
What is a czar? In Czars in the White House: The Rise of Policy Czars as Presidential Manage-
ment Tools, Justin Vaughn and José Villalobos attempt to conceptualize this type of actor
that central governments throughout the Western democracies have positioned at the
very centre of their executive branch. Czars may tackle a variety of challenges confronting
governments in an environment characterized by mediatization, internationalization,
vulnerable coalitions and changing relations between the executive and the legislative
branch. The authors offer a functional denition of czars as ‘ …administration ofcials
tasked with coordination responsibilities over a particular policy area, typically one
related to a policy problem or priority that is either new or newly important and that an
administration is intent on solving with the full force of the federal government – or at
least appearing to do so’ (p. 13).
Vaughn and Villalobos argue that exploring the seemingly simple questions ‘What is a
czar?’ and ‘What do they do?’ in the US context is not only vital for understanding czars
but also for understanding the very institution of the US presidency and how this presi-
dency has developed (p. 4). This is why the authors also have a more explanatory ambition:
to explain why presidents in the US have increasingly introduced czars into their admin-
istrations.
The authors investigate the czar phenomenon along three dimensions: ‘success’, ‘struc-
ture’ and ‘source’. By addressingthose three themes, the book engages in more explanatory
ambitions with respect to the reasons for the appointment of czars, conditions for their
performance as well as the outcome of their work.
First, investigating czars over time in terms of their function and what they actually
are doing for subsequent federal government administrations allows for an assessment
of their efciency in terms of improved policy coordination and in securing ‘a public
relations victory’ by convincing the public, the media and other politicians of the polit-
ical priority given to a specic policy issue (success). Second, the authors analyse how
attempts of the executive to both centralize and politicize the handling of a wicked pol-
icy issue within their administration (p. 5) is contingent upon the structural positioning
of their czars. As policy overseers and managers, czars face the challenge of coordinat-
ing policy in a context of increasing political pressures from Congress and an increasingly
‘thickened’ bureaucracy. The enduring challenges of political coordination and manag-
ing bureaucracy interact with ‘the politics at the moment’ (p. 6) and available coalitions,
presenting barriers or possibilities to czars in their policy endeavours (structures). Third,
the authors investigate the potential differences related to whether czars are appointed by
the administration under which they operate, or whether they are inherited but kept for
political reasons (source).
In the second chapter, the authors offertheoretical explanations for the increasing use of
czars as an attempt by presidents to ‘ …centralize and control the policy making process’
(p. 29). They describe ‘an expectation gap’ between US citizens’ increasing expectations of
the strengths and the policy capacity of any given president and the constitutional as well
as the practical constraints of party polarization in Congress. The increasing centralization
Public Administration Vol.94, No. 4, 2016 (1155–1163)
© 2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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