Terry M. Moe

Moe began his career in 1976 as an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University. In 1980, he published his first book, The Organization of Interests, which explored the organizational foundations of political interest groups, building on the work of Mancur Olson.¹ In 1981, he moved from Michigan State to Stanford, but he soon took temporary leave to be a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. During his stay there, 1984–86, he engaged in collaborative work with John E. Chubb on what became their 1990 book, Politics, Markets, and America's Schools—which, in showing how politics and special interests undermine the organization and performance of public schools, and in arguing the value of school choice, had a major impact on the education reform movement and remains widely cited.²

At the same time, Moe was writing on the presidency, public bureaucracy, and political institutions more generally. Through such articles as “The New Economics of Organization,”³ “The Politicized Presidency,”⁴ “The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure,”⁵ and “Political Institutions: The Neglected Side of the Story,”⁶ he was an early proponent of putting the analytics of institutional theory to use in transforming the study of bureaucracy and the presidency. A theme running throughout his work was (and is) that the organization of government—of departments, agencies, schools—arises out of politics and the power of special interests, and thus is literally not designed to be efficient or effective. It is because of this pervasive “politics of structure,” he argues, that government often doesn’t perform well.

Throughout the following decades, Moe continued to split his research efforts between political institutions and the politics of education. But these two streams of research were never really separate. They shared the same theoretical perspective—framed by power, special interests, and the politics of structure—and aimed to shed light on the same problems of inadequate governmental performance, showing how they are rooted in politics.

His subsequent work on the politics of education has focused largely on the power of teachers unions, their impacts on the organization and performance of schools, and their political opposition to reform. Among his more recent education publications are Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools,⁷ The Comparative Politics of Education: Teachers Unions and Education Systems around the World (edited with Susanne Wiborg),⁸ and The Politics of Institutional Reform: Katrina, Education, and the Second Face of Power.⁹

His work on political institutions has moved along a few different tracks. He has dealt with important theoretical issues that go to the heart of the institutions literature—notably, “Power and Political Institutions”¹⁰ and “Vested Interests and Political Institutions.”¹¹ He has also carried out research with Sarah F. Anzia on the politics and governmental impacts of public sector unions. Among their publications are “Public Sector Unions and the Costs of Government,”¹² and “Do Politicians Use Policy to Make Politics? The Case of Public Sector Labor Laws.”¹³ Most recently, he has been engaged in a project on presidential power and American democracy with William G. Howell, which has led, among other things, to two books—Relic¹⁴ and Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of American Democracy¹⁵—with a third on the way, expected to be published in 2025, that explains how and why the presidency has become so powerful that, in the wrong hands, it has the capacity to take democracy down.¹⁶

¹ Moe, Terry M. 1980. The Organization of Interests (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

² Chubb, John E., and Terry M. Moe. 1990. Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press).

³ Moe, Terry M. 1984. “The New Economics of Organization.” American Journal of Political Science 28: 739-777.

⁴ Moe, Terry M. 1985. “The Politicized Presidency.” In John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson, eds., The New Direction in American Politics (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press): 235-271.

⁵ Moe, Terry M. Moe. 1989. “The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure.” In John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson, eds., Can the Government Govern? (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press): 267-329.

⁶ Moe, Terry M. Moe. 1990. “Political Institutions: The Neglected Side of the Story.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 6: 213-254.

⁷ Moe, Terry M. Moe. 2011. Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press).

⁸ Moe, Terry M., and Susanne Wiborg, eds. 2017. The Comparative Politics of Education: Teachers Unions and Education Systems around the World (New York: Cambridge University Press).

⁹ Moe, Terry M. Moe. 2019. The Politics of Institutional Reform: Katrina, Education, and the Second Face of Power (New York: Cambridge University Press).

¹⁰ Moe, Terry M. 2005. “Power and Political Institutions.” Perspectives on Politics 3 (2): 215-233.

¹¹ Moe, Terry M. Moe. 2015. “Vested Interests and Political Institutions.” Political Science Quarterly 130 (2): 277-318.

¹² Anzia, Sarah F., and Terry M. Moe. 2015. “Public Sector Unions and the Costs of Government.” Journal of Politics 77 (1): 114-127.

¹³ Anzia, Sarah F., and Terry M. Moe. 2016. “Do Politicians Use Policy to Make Politics? The Case of Public Sector Labor Laws.” American Political Science Review 110 (4): 763-777.

¹⁴ Howell, William G., and Terry M. Moe. 2016. Relic: Why the Constitution Undermines Effective Government—And Why We Need a More Powerful Presidency (New York: Basic Books).

¹⁵ Howell, William G., and Terry M. Moe. 2020. Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

¹⁶ For an early, abbreviated preview, see Howell, William G., and Terry M. Moe. 2023. “The Strongman Presidency and the Two Logics of Presidential Power.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 53: 145-168.