The politics of agency termination: Confronting the myth of agency immortality

This article examines agency mortality between 1946 and 1997 and argues that, contrary to popular belief, agencies are not immortal, Rather, agencies face significant risks of termination, particularly due to political turnover. When an agency's opponents gain power, the hazards of agency mortality increase. Principal among the findings of this paper are that 62% of agencies created since 1946 have been terminated and that political turnover is one of the primary causes of termination.