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Associate Professor of Political Science at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
An expert on mathematical models of leadership and presidential operations, Professor Sullivan co-founded and acts as Executive Director of the
White House Transition Project, a multi-institutional consortium to assist in
peaceful political transitions in the United States and elsewhere. He also
manages the Presidential Transition Project at The James A. Baker III Institute
for Public Policy at Rice University.
What's New
Letter of Thanks from President George W. Bush
For his efforts in the 2000-01 transition and then again in the 2008-09 transition, Professor Sullivan recently received a letter
of thanks from President George W. Bush. The letter read in part, "Thank you for taking the time to share your expertise. An orderly transition is
critical to the smooth functioning of our Federal Government, and I am grateful for your contributions."
Transition Study in Public Administration Review
The first ever study detailing the complex of questions that presidential nominees must answer, how much overlap and redundancy
they face, and how intrusive these question become will appear in an upcoming issue of Public Administration Review, the scholarly community's
most widely read journal on matters of administration science. The study, entitled "[1] Reducing the Adversarial Burden on Nominees —
Feasible Strategies for Fixing the Presidential Appointments Process," uses the White House Transition Project's Appointments Inquiry database to
assess a number of reform strategies and their impact on nominees. It also proposes a strategy designed to reduce the burdens on
nominees by 31% without reducing the information obtained from them for vetting.
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Considering the 100 Days
January 14, 2009, Professor participated in a panel at the National Archives main building in Washington, DC.
Sponsored by the National Archives
and the White House Historical Association, the panel presented scholarly assessments of the transition process and
of the upcoming 100 days period.
Professor Sullivan has developed the only data set on the hundred days activities of Presidents Eisenhower through George H. W. Bush.
Participant in the President's Transition Coordinating Council
As part of his continuing work on preparing the
2009 presidential transition, the White House invited Professor Sullivan to attend a meeting of the Transition
Coordinating Council, involving all elements of the
Bush administration responsible for smoothing the presidential transition. The Council met January 9, 2009.
Spencer-Teagle Teaching Fellows Deploy Their Courses
The University of North Carolina recently named Professor Sullivan one of two Spencer-Teagle Teaching Fellows for 2008-2010.
Sponsored by a grant from the Spencer and Teagle Foundations, these fellowships underwrite UNC's commitment to
improving undergraduate teaching of both the inquiry process and of writing. Professor Sullivan's spring 2009 course
focuses on presidential policy making. He will then act as a University
resource with other fellows and future teaching projects. The University will use his course as a model it hopes to promote
to its faculty and to the other R1 member universities in the consortium established by the Spencer-Teagle initiative.
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Sites of Interest |
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Professional Interests
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Academic Vita
Download
vita.(pdf)
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Professor Sullivan's professional interests focus on formal theories, presidential
leadership, public and private leadership, executive (and specifically White House) operations, and
legislative procedures (especially the rules of the US House of
Representatives). His current projects include continuing work on White House operations (his latest book on the subject: Nerve Center: Lessons on Governing
from the White House Chiefs of Staff) and a book on modeling presidential
leadership entitled Making
A Difference - LBJ, Persuasion, Routine,and Reach in Presidential
Leadership.
Professor Sullivan continues to work with The White House Transition Project,which provides
scholarly information and assistance to secure a successful presidential
transition. It's latest published research, The
White House World, compiles an abridged set of its briefing
papers on White House operations used by the George W. Bush White House and the Barrack H. Obama transition and White House.
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Download Center
You can find versions of current research papers here (all in PDF
format): |
| Current Research
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Previous Research
- Presidential Work During the 100 Days, White House Transition Project Institutional Anatomy Report Series, Report #2009-01 (August, 2008).
- "Presidential Persuasive Advantage: Strategy, Compliance-Gaining,
and Sequencing," Congress and the Presidency
- "Two Operational Dilemmas," Chapter 1 from Nerve Center
- "Assessing Transition 2001," Chapter 6 from Nerve Center
- "Impeachment
Practice in the Era of Lethal Conflict," Congress and the
Presidency, 25(Autumn 1998):117-28.
- "President-Centered
and Presidency-Centered Explanations of Presidential Public Activity,"
with Gregory L. Hager,American Journal of Political Science,
38(1994): 675-92.
- "Bargaining
with the President: A Simple Game and New Evidence," American
Political Science Review, 84(1990):1167-96.
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