Faithful Infidelity: “Political Time,” George W. Bush, and the Paradox of “Big Government Conservatism”

Abstract

George W. Bush assumed the presidency with the ill-fated political aim of creating a permanent electoral alignment favoring Reagan Republicanism in America by pursuing a "big government conservatism", agenda with human resource management (HRM) strategies lying at its heart. In the process of setting the other HRM-focused contributions to this symposium in broader context, the authors define the logic of big government conservativism as a strategy for electoral realignment, discuss the place of HRM as a tactical means for advancing that agenda, and place Bush's efforts in "political time." In offering an integrative framework for assessing the critical role of the White House, the executive office of the president, and political appointees in redefining the career civil service as a key component of Bush's big conservatism agenda, we portray Bush's failed efforts at constructing a permanent Republican political majority as encountering similar dynamics and meeting a similar fate as other "orthodox innovators" in presidential history. At the same time, his place in political time was not destiny, because he achieved a mixed record of strategic, political, and tactical competence while operating within the constraints of his political time.

Of alternating waves and shifting shores: the configuration of reform values in the US federal bureaucracy

“…NPM's most recent incarnation occurred with the Bush administration's (2001-08) human resources reforms that plugged partially into a strategy pursued since the presidency of Ronald Reagan (Milakovich, 1988). Broad reflections on the civil service legacy of George W. Bush (see for instance, Campbell et al, 2007;Durant et al, 2010b;Maranto et al, 2009) mostly acknowledge his political, ideological, and technical resolve to shape the bureaucracy after conservative values.…”

Appointee–Careerist Relations in the Presidential Transition of 2008‐2009

“…The Heritage Foundation often referred to Bush administration policies as emanating “straight from the Heritage playbook” (e.g., http://www.heritage.org/~/media/Financial%20PDFs/39932_1.ashx [accessed July 14, 2014]). In fact, one of the report's coauthors (Nesterczuk) was appointed “to oversee the design and implementation of the National Security Personnel System” (Durant, Stazyk, and Resh, , 396) that brought about a vast “reduction of Title V coverage for U. S. civilian personnel” (Pfiffner, , 7).…”