Organizing the Presidency

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated in March 1933, the White House staff numbered fewer than fifty people. In the ensuing years, as the United States became a world power and both the foreign and domestic duties of the president grew more complex, the White House staff has increased twentyfold. This books asks how best to manage a presidency that itself has become a bureaucracy. In the third edition of Organizing the Presidency, Stephen Hess, with the assistance of James P. Pfiffner, surveys presidential organizations from Roosevelt¡¯s to George W. Bush¡¯s, examining the changing responsibilities of the executive branch jobs and their relationships with one another, Capitol Hill, and the permanent government. He also describes the kinds of people who have filled these positions and the intentions of the presidents who appointed them.

Stephen Hess is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings institution.