Public Management for Populists: Trump’s Schedule F Executive Order and the Future of the Civil Service

Abstract

For over a century, the value of employee protections and limits on direct political control has been the sine qua non of a merit-based bureaucracy for the US public service. Such assumptions are at odds with the desire of populist governments to exert control over institutions of governance. This tension emerged during the Trump administration. Trump’s Schedule F Executive Order sought to transform much of the career public service into political appointees, allowing them to be removed if they were not performing according to the President’s goals. In the chaotic last days of the Trump administration, the order was not implemented. But Schedule F offers both a glimpse of an alternative process for public management policymaking that excludes the field of public administration, as well as a potential harbinger for the future of the US civil service.

Keywords: civil service; Trump; politicization

JEL Classification: h83