The politics of distraction: Evidence from presidential executive orders

a column by Milena Djourelova and Ruben Durante for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal


Source: Djourelova and Durante (2019).

It is often suspected that politicians time announcements of controversial policies strategically to avoid public scrutiny.

This column reports evidence from a systematic analysis of executive orders issued by US presidents, showing that their timing is consistent with strategic behaviour. Presidents tend to issue executive orders, and specifically ones that are likely to generate negative publicity, in coincidence with other important events that distract the media and the public.

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I know that this piece is telling many people what they already know but it is good to see the evidence.
I would dearly love to see a similar analysis of political announcements made in the UK.

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Political control and policy-making uncertainty in executive orders: the implementation of environmental justice policy

an article by Co;lin Provost (University College London, UK) and Brian J Gerber (Arizona State University, USA) published in Journal of Public Policy Volume 39 Issue 2 (June 2019)

Abstract

Environmental justice (EJ) has represented an important equity challenge in policymaking for decades. President Clinton’s executive order (EO) 12898 in 1994 represented a significant federal action, requiring agencies to account for EJ issues in new rulemakings.

We examine the impact of EO 12898 within the larger question of how EO are implemented in complex policymaking. We argue that presidential preferences will affect bureaucratic responsiveness and fire alarm oversight.

However, EJ policy complexity produces uncertainty leading to bureaucratic risk aversion, constraining presidential efforts to steer policy.

We utilise an original data set of nearly 2,000 final federal agency rules citing EO 12898 and find significant variation in its utilisation across administrations. Uncertainty over the nature of the order has an important influence on bureaucratic responsiveness.

Our findings are instructive for the twin influences of political control and policy-making uncertainty and raise useful questions for future EJ and policy implementation research.

Full text (PDF 30pp)

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