When Presidents Limit Bureaucratic Power: Evidence from Abortion Bans in Foreign Aid

Abstract

Presidents possess vast authority to change policy unilaterally. But their power depends on the compliance of unelected officials, who typically have more information. We examine the conditions under which presidents invest in costly oversight of the bureaucracy. We identify an underlying political process—the polarization of an agent’s potential principals—and argue that because this increases the potential for future policy losses for presidents, they create new means of overseeing agency behavior. To test this argument, we examine abortion restrictions in foreign aid, leveraging archival records and interviews with former officials. Most importantly, this allows us to study prohibitions that were proposed but not adopted. We find that as abortion became an essential part of party competition for the presidency, Republican presidents increased their investment in oversight, which eroded bureaucrats ability to moderate presidential power over abortion abroad.