This article seeks to compare the policy histories of the legislative term limits in France and the United States. Both nations debated, initially adopted, and then ultimately rejected imposing term limits during the foundational moments of their democracies. Reemerging in the 1990s in America, proposals to refresh government through such limits have been successful in the states and have failed at the national level. The idea regained prominence in France when Emmanuel Macron supported it during his 2017 presidential election. Although Macron eventually abandoned the proposal, the revival of this debate is an opportunity to draw broad parallels but identify critical differences between the two nations in the philosophical debates over term limits and the ways that leaders have embraced or abandoned them to fulfill their political goals. We show how the idea circulated between the two nations, without a parallel exchange of evidence about its effects.

We maintain that political institutions’ policy objectives are best met under conditions when they are unified, and also when their administrative leadership is effective. We apply this argument to the understanding of how unified Democratic and Republican governments in the American states have influenced the incomes of affluent citizens. We find that affluent income gains occur under unified Republican state governments when compensation to executive agency heads is sufficiently high. These income gains are notable relative to both divided and unified partisan control of state governments. The evidence highlights the asymmetric role that bureaucratic leadership plays in attaining policy outcomes consistent with political institutions’ policy preferences, while underscoring the limits of electoral institutions to shape policy outcomes of their own accord. Efforts to lower the capacity of the administrative leadership constrain unified political institutions from converting their policy objectives into policy outcomes.