Presidents Buy the Evidence They Need: Federal Research Shaped by Executive Priorities

Why This Question Matters

Rachel Potter examines how the U.S. presidency can shape not just policy but the evidence that supports it. Federal agencies routinely commission research from private contractors; that research often becomes part of the evidence base for future policy decisions. If procurement choices are politically guided, they offer a previously underappreciated lever of presidential influence over what counts as authoritative knowledge.

What Rachel Potter Studied

Potter analyzes federally funded policy research produced for the U.S. government between 2000 and 2019. She treats procurement of outside research as a potentially political commodity—something the executive can direct toward favored agencies, topics, or programs to bolster a president's agenda.

How She Studied It

• Assembled an original dataset of federal procurement for policy research covering 2000–2019.
• Measured patterns in contract awards (including contract size) across agencies and over time.
• Compared continuity of research projects across administrations to see whether new presidents sustain or discontinue predecessor-initiated work.

Key Findings

• Agencies prioritized by the president tend to receive larger research contracts, suggesting dollars are targeted to produce supportive evidence for favored policy areas.
• Incoming administrations are more likely to discontinue research projects begun under their predecessors, indicating a turnover in what research the executive endorses or values.

What This Means for Policy and Scholarship

The study argues that procurement power is a strategic tool: by steering which questions are funded and which projects are stopped, presidents can shape the federal evidence base that future policymakers and agencies rely on. For scholars, the results highlight procurement as a mechanism of executive influence worth tracking; for practitioners, they point to the political stakes behind seemingly technical decisions about research funding.