As U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration nominate and appoint senior officials across the federal government, pundits, journalists and experts have increasingly speculated about the consequences of these personnel decisions for U.S. policy. While this is a natural and potentially useful activity, it has limitations. Indeed, notwithstanding some fundamental truth in the adage that personnel is policy, and isolated individual officials who have had outsized impact, the policy process is more than an amalgamation of personnel decisions. How the new president defines his priorities—which are likely to skew heavily toward domestic affairs—and how effective he proves to be in organizing his administration to advance them will also be decisive.
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