Trump and the Bureaucrats: The Fate of Neutral Competence. New Book by Interim Dean Stuart Shapiro

January 31, 2023

Donald Trump came to office vowing the deconstruction of the administrative state, and for four years he and his loyalists waged war on the federal bureaucracy. How did this conflict affect both those inside the government and the way federal officials view their role? Disputes over the role of bureaucrats as experts and as politically neutral are more than a century old. But the Trump Administration’s position in these debates was very different. Based on 50 interviews with officials at the Office of Management and Budget, the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office, and the Economic Research Service at USDA, I conclude both that neutral competence in the federal government is alive and well within those agencies, and in danger from future Trump like presidents

Interim Dean Stuart Shaprio

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-22079-1#toc

Recent Posts

Pfeiffer Ranks on List for Local Political Influence (Daily Targum)

By Daniel Ovadia Dec. 9, 2025, 8:04 p.m. Marc Pfeiffer, a senior policy fellow and associate director of Bloustein Local — a unit of Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy's Center for Urban Policy Development — was recently ranked on the Insider 100...

NJSPL Report: Investor Acquisition of Residential Properties

Report Release: Trends in Investor Acquisition of Residential Properties in New Jersey Read Report Corporate ownership of single-family homes and other small residential properties has drawn growing concern from housing advocates and policymakers in New Jersey and...

Dean Shapiro: Another Blow to Regulatory Benefit-Cost Analysis

By Dean Stuart Shapiro The Trump Administration’s weakening of regulatory benefit-cost analysis vests unequal power in executive review. In late October, the acting administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) issued a memo attempting to...

Ceu Cirne-Neves, MPA, FACHE Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

The Bloustein School is proud to share that Professor Céu Cirne-Neves, MPA, FACHE has been honored with the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Healthcare Executives New Jersey Chapter (ACHE-NJ). The award was presented at the chapter’s...