INSTRUCTIONS: Write a paper on executive branch leadership in the White House and executive branch bureaucracy in the Trump administration. For this paper, students will first need to read and review at least two links/sections on governmentisgood.com, and The War on Government, Then conduct additional research from academically legitimate and evidence-based sources. This should include government data, empirical data, and/or scholarly and journalistic research to support your work.
So the big questions in this paper are: Presidents may have as many as 4,000 senior or leadership posts to fill – about 30% require Senate approval – to manage the executive branch bureaucracy. This is a critical and constitutionally required part of the job of the president. What is the pattern and nature of executive branch and senior personnel management in the Trump administration and what are its political and policy consequences? Put differently, how do you characterize the presidents approach to managing the executive branch bureaucracy and what are the consequences of this approach? Is there anything highly unusual or unprecedented going on here?

1. The paper should focus on President Trumps appointments and actions with regard to the most critical leadership positions. These include (a) Secretary (head) and very senior posts in the 15 Cabinet level departments (including inspectors general); (b) key officials in the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and White House staff (positions such as chief of staff, OMB director, National Security Advisor, head of Council of Economic Advisors); (c) heads of independent agencies (such as the DNI, CIA, SBA, EPA); and (d) US ambassadors (State Department) who represent the US in foreign countries.

2. Given this focus on senior personnel in the executive branch bureaucracy, students can examine these Trump nominees and executive branch senior officials as follows:
How many and which positions were and remain vacant?
How many and which appointments have been withdrawn? And why?
How many senior officials have resigned or been fired, and why?
How many and which positions are merely acting appointments, even though the posts require Senate confirmation?

NOTE: Students are encouraged to use charts to present and summarize much of the information in these bullets.

3. Among Trumps appointees and nominees, provide, where appropriate, specific information on individual nominees and officials that appear to:
have unsatisfactory qualifications and inappropriate experience, and/or demonstrated too little competence.
be involved in corrupt, illegal, and/or unethical conduct.
appear to serve private and/or their own interests at the expense of the public interest.

4. What are the likely consequences of this level of executive branch senior official vacancies, credentials, withdrawn appointments, firings, resignations, and turnover? Be as specific as possible. Remember our earlier definition of public policy as an ongoing process where a government acts, does not act, and/or chooses to transfer to a non-governmental actor the opportunity for action about a societal issue.

5. How, if at all, does this pattern of personnel management affect governance and presidential power in the Trump administration? How persuasive, how accurate is the claim that drain the swamp is in fact an updated version of what Douglas Amy (governmentisgood) calls an attack on the federal government indeed, an attack on our constitutional democracy? Give reasons that explain your answer.

Students will find that the following websites and sources are especially useful in developing their essay: American Foreign Services Association, American Review of Public Administration, Axios, Ballotpedia, BBC, Brookings, CNN, Forensicnews, Fortune, The Hill, NBC, NPR, The New York Times, Politifact, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Time, USA Today, USNews, Washington Post, Wired, and even Wikipedia. Students should also find that searches of relevant Google images might be helpful.

Papers must be typed 12 font and 1.5 or double spaced, with a text in the range of 1,200–1500 words plus information placed in charts. Papers should additionally have title and footnote/reference pages. There should be no fewer than five references above and beyond assigned materials and reasonably current (since 2015). Papers MUST include footnotes or endnotes where appropriate. All formats are acceptable, as long as they are used consistently. In all cases, understand UC plagiarism rules and adhere to them. Provide a reference when you use someones ideas (this is perfectly okay). USE YOUR OWN WORDS whenever possible. No paper should use more than one IMPORTANT quotation, and that quotation should be no more than 3-4 lines.