Why the 'Deep State' Doesn't Exist in the Civil Service

The federal workforce is made up of more than two million individuals, so it is hardly a monolith of ideology, values or common sentiment. Each one swears an oath to the Constitution, of course, but they are human beings with their own viewpoints, including on policy and politics.

Dr. Edoardo Teso is an Assistant Professor of Managerial Economics & Decision Sciences at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Dr. Guo Xu is an Assistant Professor of Business and Public Policy at the Haas School of Business University of California at Berkeley. His research focuses on the selection, recruitment and allocation of talent in private and public sector organizations. Teso and Xu examine the connection between politics and public employees in a working in a new working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research titled "Ideology and Performance in Public Organization." They joined the podcast to discuss their paper and the ways ideology does or doesn’t affect civil servants' job performance.