The Loyalty Trap - by Jaime Lee Kucinskas

About the Book

The Loyalty Trap explores how civil servants navigated competing pressures and duties amid the chaos of the Trump administration, drawing on in-depth interviews with senior officials in the most contested agencies over the course of a tumultuous term.

Book Synopsis

Donald J. Trump took office threatening to run roughshod over democratic institutions, railing against the federal bureaucracy, and calling for dismantling the administrative state. How do civil servants respond to a presidential turn toward authoritarianism? In what ways--if any--can they restrain or counter leaders who defy the norms of liberal democratic governance?

The Loyalty Trap explores how civil servants navigated competing pressures and duties amid the chaos of the Trump administration, drawing on in-depth interviews with senior officials in the most contested agencies over the course of a tumultuous term. Jaime Lee Kucinskas argues that the professional culture and ethical obligations of the civil service stabilize the state in normal times but insufficiently prepare bureaucrats to cope with a president like Trump. Instead, federal employees became ensnared in intractable ethical traps, caught between their commitment to nonpartisan public service and the expectation of compliance with political directives. Kucinskas shares their quandaries, recounting attempts to preserve the integrity of government agencies, covert resistance, and a few bold acts of moral courage in the face of organizational decline and politicized leadership. A nuanced sociological account of the lessons of the Trump administration for democratic governance, The Loyalty Trap offers a timely and bracing portrait of the fragility of the American state.

Review Quotes

The Loyalty Trap provides extraordinary insights into how U.S. federal civil servants walked the fine line between their bureaucratic roles and their obligations to American democracy during Donald Trump's presidency. Kucinskas's three waves of in-depth interviews give readers an insider's view of institutions that have served Americans well for more than a century.--James Perry, author of Managing Organizations to Sustain Passion for Public Service

Kucinskas's book offers a captivating insider account of civil servants' challenges in staying morally and culturally committed to their positions as autocratic leadership put them in ethically and legally compromised situations. This study reveals the surprising fragility of our democratic institutions as seen through the eyes of government employees who are experiencing their deterioration in real time.--Brayden King, coauthor of Protestors and Their Targets

Jaime Kucinskas offers profound insights into the tensions between bureaucracy and democracy, illuminating the precarious tightrope public servants walked navigating the unprecedented challenges of the Trump administration--balancing professional standards, personal ethics, competing loyalties, and workplace culture in an increasingly difficult political environment. This is essential reading to understand the complexities of governance in an era of profound political polarization.--Rosemary O'Leary, author of The Ethics of Dissent: Managing Guerrilla Government

Jaime Lee Kucinskas offers a compelling analysis of how bureaucratic loyalty can pave the way toward authoritarianism. Her study of bureaucratic resistance during the Trump administration revitalizes the conversation on ethics in public administration and provides strategies for safeguarding democracy. A must-read on organizational transformation.--Michael W. Bauer, coeditor of International Bureaucracy: Challenges and Lessons for Public Administration

About the Author

Jaime Lee Kucinskas is associate professor of sociology at Hamilton College. She is the author of The Mindful Elite: Mobilizing from the Inside Out (2019) and a coeditor of Situating Spirituality: Context, Practice, and Power (2022).