Law Commons^™

Civil Servant Disobedience, Jennifer Nou

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Bureaucratic resistance is a historically unexceptional feature of the administrative state. What is striking is the extent to which it has become publicly defiant under the Trump Administration. Civil servants are openly defying executive directives in their official capacity, despite strong norms to the contrary. The social practice raises both parallels and contrasts to civil disobedience by private citizens; it thus similarly raises the need for sustained scholarly debate. This article seeks to isolate the phenomenon of civil servant disobedience conceptually and begin an exploration into its normative implications. In particular, it considers the ideal of a reciprocal hierarchy, whereby …

The Progressive Idea Of Democratic Administration, William J. Novak

Articles

The first thing to acknowledge about administration is that administration is coincident with governance. Far from being a modern invention or some kind of radical departure from an original political or legal tradition, administration is among the oldest practices of governments. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of government without administration. Laws need to be enforced, legislation needs to be implemented, and collective goods need to be secured. Governance is mostly a matter of actions and practices, making administration perhaps the most truly reflective aspect of legal and political culture.

The Semi-Autonomous Administrative State, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Conflicting views about presidential control of the administrative state have too long been characterized in terms of a debate over agency independence. But the term “independent” when used to describe administrative agencies carries with it the baggage of an unhelpful and unrealistic dichotomy: administrative agencies that are (or should be) subservient to presidential control versus those that are (or should be) entirely free from such influence. No agency fits into either category. This essay proposes reorienting the debate over presidential control around agency “autonomy,” which better conveys that the key issue is a matter of degree. Contrary to some proponents …

Strategic Institutional Positioning: How We Have Come To Generate Environmental Law Without Congress, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan