American civil-military relations and presidential power of removal/
Neil Snyder
- 2023
Under what conditions are presidents more likely to remove senior defense officials from office? Using a novel data set of all senior U.S. defense officials, both civilian and uniformed military from 1947 to 2021, this article explores whether anticipated support in Congress, partisan factors, or institutional protections for the military affect observed patterns of removal for defense officials. The results suggest that presidents are more likely to remove their own appointees (or their co-partisans' appointees), but provide little evidence that presidents premise removal on anticipated partisan support for a replacement nominee in Congress.