Polarization, Excepted Appointments, and the Administrative Presidency.

The rise of congressional polarization has led presidents to seek alternative ways to pursue their agendas through staffing. I argue presidents use excepted appointments, which are excepted both from advice and consent and competitive hiring processes, when ideological conflict within the Senate is high. I also argue that Schedule C appointments specifically are concentrated in agencies ideologically similar to the president due to their advisory nature. I find preliminary support for these hypotheses using Office of Personnel Management data on Schedule C appointees from 1998 to 2013. In sum, this study shows that excepted appointments are an important yet understudied tool in the president's administrative toolbox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]