Elitism and Presidential Appointments.

The president's appointments to senior-level administrative positions provide a mechanism through which the economic and political elites in the United States maintain control of public policy. This paper analyzes the extent to which such appointments are given to individuals who can be defined as members of an elite, beginning with the Kennedy administration and continuing through the Reagan administration. The results indicate that an extraordinary proportion of appointees may be considered members of an elite and support the notion that elites dominate U.S. national politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]