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Political Control Versus Expertise: Congressional Choices about Administrative Procedures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Kathleen Bawn
Kathleen Bawn
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Abstract

Congressional choices about administrative procedures affect an agency's political responsiveness and the technical accuracy of its decisions. Legislators would like to design procedures so that agencies make technically sound decisions and balance the needs of competing interests in the way intended. In practice, agency procedures designed to promote technical competence often allow for political drift, and those that promote political control provide little new technical information about the consequences of policy decisions. The trade-off between technical competence and political control is captured in a model of a legislative coalition's decision about agency procedures. The choice variables are the agency's expected preferences and independence. Depending on exogenous levels of technical and political uncertainty, optimal agency procedures can maximize technical competence, maximize political control, or achieve a combination of the two.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 62 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1995

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