Law Commons^™

Administrative Law: The U.S. And Beyond, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Administrative law constrains and directs the behavior of officials in the many governmental bodies responsible for implementing legislation and handling governance responsibilities on a daily basis. This field of law consists of procedures for decision making by these administrative bodies, including rules about transparency and public participation. It also encompasses oversight practices provided by legislatures, courts, and elected executives. The way that administrative law affects the behavior of government officials holds important implications for the fulfillment of democratic principles as well as effective governance in society. This paper highlights salient political theory and legal issues fundamental to the U.S. administrative …

Politics And Agencies In The Administrative State: The U.S. Case, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

The pending American presidential election, culminating a period of extreme political partisanship in our national government generally, gives point to an essay on politics and agencies in the American regulatory state. In our two-party system, it has often been the case in recent times, including the last six years, that the President comes from one of our two major political parties and one or both houses of Congress are controlled by the other. All American agencies (including, in the American case, the so-called independent regulatory bodies) are associated with the President in the executive branch, yet dependent on the Senate …

Quitting In Protest: A Theory Of Presidential Policy Making And Agency Response, Charles M. Cameron, John M. De Figueiredo, David E. Lewis

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the effects of centralized presidential policy-making, implemented through unilateral executive action, on the willingness of bureaucrats to exert effort and stay in the government. Extending models in organizational economics, we show that policy initiative by the president is a substitute for initiative by civil servants. Yet, total effort is enhanced when both work. Presidential centralization of policy often impels policy-oriented bureaucrats ("zealots") to quit rather than implement presidential policies they dislike. Those most likely to quit are a range of moderate bureaucrats. More extreme bureaucrats may be willing to wait out an opposition president in the hope …

Imperfect Principals And Lobbyist Agency Costs, Jack M. Beermann

Shorter Faculty Works

One of the secrets to scholarly success is picking interesting topics. It also helps if your analysis makes an interesting topic even more interesting. That’s exactly what Matthew Stephenson and Howell Jackson have done in their essay Lobbyists as Imperfect Agents: Implications for Public Policy in a Pluralist System, 47 Harv. J. Legis. 1 (2010). In this well-written and engaging essay, Stephenson and Jackson describe how principal-agent problems manifest themselves in the lobbying context and hypothesize on how these manifestations might affect public policy outcomes.

Wherever there are principals and agents, there are principal-agent problems, but the lobbying context …

Helping "Concerned Volunteers Working Out Of Their Kitchens": Funding Citizen Participation In Administrative Decision Making, Marcia Valiante, W. A. Bogart

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Broad citizen participation in decision making by administrative bodies is important in achieving fairness, improving the quality of decisions, and realizing accountability and legitimacy. Yet such broad participation often hinges on adequate financial capacity. In this regard, the authors review a number of mechanisms used for funding citizen participation. These mechanisms are variations of essentially two models: public funding (direct and indirect) and direct funding by proponents. The article concludes with a plea for such mechanisms--even in a time of severe financial restraint-as one reflection of a vigorous participatory democracy.

On The Constitutional Status Of The Administrative Agencies, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

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