Replication Data for: Implementing Presidential Particularism: Bureaucracy and the Distribution of Federal Grants

Do agencies implement the president’s particularistic goals uniformly? This article clarifies the presidential particularism literature by explicitly considering the mechanism through which the president pursues their policy goals: executive agencies. The constellation of bureaucratic agencies responsible for allocating grants plays a key role in facilitating or frustrating presidential policy priorities. Using a dataset of twenty-one agencies over fourteen years, I find that only agencies ideologically proximate to the president engage in particularism benefiting the president. I find no evidence that politicization influences agency implementation of particularism. Critically, the moderating effect of the bureaucracy on particularism only occurs for distributive programs over which agencies have discretion. When disbursing formula grants written by Congress but administered by the bureaucracy with little or no discretion, ideological distance between agencies and presidents has no effect on particularism.

各行政机构是否会统一执行总统的特殊主义施政目标？本文通过明确考量总统推行政策目标的核心机制——行政机构——，厘清了总统特殊主义（presidential particularism）研究领域的既有文献。负责分配拨款的各类官僚机构，在推动或阻滞总统政策优先事项落地方面发挥着关键作用。本文基于覆盖14年、涵盖21个行政机构的数据集展开实证研究，结果显示：仅在意识形态上与总统立场相近的机构，才会推行惠及总统的特殊主义政策。本文未发现任何证据表明政治化程度会影响机构对特殊主义政策的执行。尤为关键的是，官僚体系对特殊主义的调节效应，仅存在于机构拥有自由裁量权的分配性项目中。而在发放由国会制定规则、但由官僚体系执行且几乎无自由裁量权的定额拨款（formula grants）时，机构与总统之间的意识形态距离并不会对特殊主义政策的推行产生影响。