A consensus has emerged about how White House staffs should be organized, which we refer to as the “standard model.” Yet recent presidencies have produced various kinds of dissatisfaction with the performance of the White House staff. Here, we explore whether the new normative understanding of White House structuring for decision making offers prescriptions that are as “good” as they might be. Focusing on the limitations of hierarchical structuring and of multiple advocacy, we urge both a more nuanced view of the nature of White House decision making and a more variegated approach to modeling and prescribing appropriate structures.

This article explores issues related to the size and complexity of the White House Office (WHO). Overall numbers from the Roosevelt through the Carter administrations show uneven growth (and decline) in the White House staff and point to the need for more disaggregated analysis. Attention focuses on three offices (congressional relations, speechwriting, and public liaison) in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations as illustrations of the varying patterns in and explanations of changes in staff size. One implication of this analysis is that efforts to restrict the size of the WHO may undermine presidential capacity and accountability.

Focusing on White House chiefs of staff and the Office of the Chief of Staff during the first three years of the Donald Trump administration, we examine the office and its occupants in the context of past scholarship on White House structuring and staffing. We discuss four major roles performed by chiefs of staff and their deputies (administrator, advisor, guardian, proxy), exploring their participation in management and in policy processes. We also look at the larger chief of staff's office, noting continuities with, and changes from, previous presidencies. Probing the roles, activities, and performance of President Donald Trump's first three chiefs of staff underscores both the significance of individual presidents in governing and the apparent constraints on their doing so.

Civically and politically interested individuals often use the Internet to facilitate and augment their civic and political participation. At the local level, such people also use the Internet to communicate and share information with fellow members of the local community groups to which they belong. In doing so, local groups help to create awareness and draw citizens into public deliberation about local issues and concerns, not only offline (a role they have played for many years) but also online. This research examines the interplay of individual-level and local group-level factors through an analysis of household survey data from the town of Blacksburg, Virginia, and surrounding areas in 2005 and 2006. It seeks to reconcile different levels of analysis—individual and group levels—relating to the use and impact of the Internet on civic engagement. This study identifies the distinctive influences at both the individual level and the community group level by applying a multilevel statistical model (specifically, the hierarchical linear model). First, at the individual level of analysis, this study found that internal and external political efficacy and community collective efficacy were significant individual-level factors explaining the Internet use for civic and political purposes. Second, at the group level of analysis, community group Internet use—which includes listservs, discussion forums, and blogs, among other emerging Internet technologies—and group political discussion were revealed as key influences on citizens’ perspectives on the helpfulness of the Internet for civic and political purposes. Finally, in multilevel analysis, when taking individual-level variables into account, the group-level variables (group Internet use and group political discussion and interests) are positively associated with the views of the helpfulness of the Internet in connecting with others in the community and becoming more involved in local issues.

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