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This study aims to identify the political alignment and political activity of the 11 Presidents of Britain’s most important scientific organisation, the Royal Society of London, in its early years 1662–1703, to determine whether or not the institution was politically aligned.

There is almost no information addressing the political alignment of the Royal Society or its Presidents available in the institution’s archives, or in the writings of historians specialising in its administration. Even reliable biographical sources, such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography provide very limited information. However, as 10 Presidents were elected Member of Parliament (MP), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social and Local History provides a wealth of accurate, in-depth data, revealing the alignment of both.

All Presidents held senior government offices, the first was a Royalist aristocrat; of the remaining 10, 8 were Royalist or Tory MPs, 2 of whom were falsely imprisoned by the House of Commons, 2 were Whig MPs, while 4 were elevated to the Lords. The institution was Royalist aligned 1662–1680, Tory aligned 1680–1695 and Whig aligned 1695–1703, which reflects changes in Parliament and State.

This study establishes that the early Royal Society was not an apolitical institution and that the political alignment of Presidents and institution continued in later eras. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the election or appointment of an organisation’s most senior officer can be used to signal its political alignment with government and other organisations to serve various ends.

The Executive Office of the President's Office of Administration has restructured its informational organizational components to provide for better integration of information support systems for the 11 EOP agencies. External computerized databases are being used to support information needs in major policy areas such as economics, social welfare, health, trade, science, technology, international affairs and the environment. At the same time, internal systems are being designed and implemented to support use of the external databases. These systems will provide administrative and management capabilities as well as reference support, and will enhance communications in this highly intensive policy and programmatic environment.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

In his March 1986 article in Newsweek, Russell Watson exposed “Queen Imelda” Marcos's life of indulgence as the Philippines' First Lady in the opening paragraph:Three thousand pairs of shoes, size eight and a half. Five shelves of unused Gucci handbags, still stuffed with paper, price tags still attached. Five hundred bras, mostly black, and a trunk full of girdles, 40 and 42 inches around the hips. Huge bottles of perfume, vats of Christian Dior wrinkle cream, a walk-in-safe littered with dozens of empty jewelry cases. When the palace of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos was opened to the public as a museum last week, foreigners and Filipinos alike gawked at what the former First Lady had left behind. “It was the worst case of conspicuous consumption I have ever seen,” said an American visitor, Rep. Stephen Solarz. “Compared to her, Marie Antoinette was a bag lady.” (Watson, 1986, p. 14)

Various researchers (Bennis, 1999; Birks, Budden, Stewart, & Chapman, 2014; Boggs, 2003; Burns, 1978; Gill & Jones, 2013; McPhail, 2002) have studied executive leadership and the cultures such leaders govern. Other studies have considered workplace bullying and its impact on the target (Branch, Ramsay & Barker, 2007; Hollis, 2015; Keim & McDermott, 2010; Klein, 2009). However, the voice of the president is often missing from such studies on workplace bullying and the culture that causes these distractions. Therefore, this narrative qualitative study collects the stories of six community college presidents to better understand how even the most executive officer can be the target of workplace bullying. The findings reveal that presidents endure workplace bullying from collective populations such as the faculty or the community. Further, the board of trustees can act as or enable a bully that has a deleterious impact on the presidents and the communities they serve. The findings from this narrative qualitative study may prove informative to candidates considering such presidential or chief executive positions as well as to boards of trustees who are critical to any president’s success.

This chapter analyzes the concept of the Center of Government (CoG) and its relevance for the public administration agenda in Latin America. It identifies five key functions of the CoG: strategic management, policy coordination, performance monitoring and improvement, political management, and communications and accountability, and it assesses the region's performance for each of them, citing concrete experiences. The CoG is still an emerging topic for scholars and practitioners in Latin America. Despite the fact that CoGs in Latin America formally recognize most if not all of its five key functions, the region shows a relatively weak performance in practice. Nonetheless, recent innovative experiences show an increased interest in governments to strengthen the CoG and suggest paths that may lead to improved performance.

The CoG may be a relatively new topic in public administration research, but it is not a new phenomenon. It refers to functions that have been performed, and to structures that have existed, for several decades in many countries, including Latin American ones. However, a number of factors have led to an increased relevance of CoG institutions in recent years. The first section of this chapter will attempt to define the concept of “Center of Government”; to enumerate the CoG's main political and technical functions; to describe the typical structures that perform these functions; and to indicate why these institutions play a critical role in current times. Then, Section 2 will discuss how CoG institutions in Latin American countries have been performing their core functions, identifying regional trends and country-level configurations. The political economy of CoG strengthening will also be covered. Section 3 concludes.

The purpose of this study is to extend the research of Michael, Schwartz, and Balraj pertaining to presidential effectiveness. Faculty senate chairpersons, academic deans, senior‐level institutional officers, and student leaders were surveyed in order to ascertain whether there was a relationship between stakeholders' perceptions and whether the findings support the original study conducted by Michael et al.

A descriptive, survey research methodology was utilized to survey 36 institutions of higher learning in the state of Ohio. Each participant was requested to complete a two‐page survey that included questions related to indicators of presidential effectiveness, factors associated with the president's role at their respective institution, and ways of improving presidential effectiveness. Analysis of the data included a descriptive analysis of means and standard deviations; Spearman rho coefficient to obtain correlations of ranked data; and an Analysis of Variance to identify differences among each independent variable.

Analysis of the data showed that participants agreed that all of the indicators of effectiveness were important. Additionally, stakeholders and trustees agree more than they disagree on the indicators of effectiveness and the role of a president.

The implications of this research suggest that an assessment of the president should include institutional stakeholders in the process coupled with a detailed assessment of the institution. Strong oversight by the governing board is important to ensure integrity of the process, respect for individuals and the office of the president, and support for the professional development of a president.

This study extended the research of Michael et al. pertaining to presidential effectiveness.

This paper considers the sometimes serious and controversial political, legal, institutional and technological issues that were triggered by the mass transfer and copying of electronic presidential records by the Sixteenth President of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) at the end of his term of office.

During this administration, the Korean government made significant government‐wide recordkeeping innovations, mainly initiated and supported by the then President Roh Moo Hyun, and also supported by civilian professionals. The Public Records Management Act (PRMA) was revised, the Presidential Records Act (PRA) legislated and the National Archives of Korea tripled in staff size and made significant government records innovations. At the end of his term, the President copied all of his presidential records in electronic form and kept them for his own use, transferring the “authenticated” records to the National Archives. The National Archives subsequently charged his former secretaries with violation of the Presidential Records Act.

The paper summarizes the records issues to give further consideration to electronic records matters as well as dealing with politically sensitive records in the public archives. Can recordkeeping and politics be divorced? If so, how?

The paper provides insight into the political dimension of recordkeeping in the public, government context in Korea.