Despite repeated calls for retrospective regulatory review by every President since the 1970s, progress on implementing such reviews has been slow. We argue that part of the explanation for the slow progress to date stems from misalignment between the goals of regulatory review and the institutional framework used for the review. We define three distinct goals of regulatory review – the rule relevance goal, the rule improvement goal, and the regulatory learning goal. We then examine the text of the Presidential Executive Orders and major Congressional legislation addressing retrospective review, and document which goals were targeted and which institutions were used to conduct the reviews. We find that the U.S. federal government has almost always sought review of one rule at a time, conducted by the agency that issued or promulgated the rule and that these reviews tend to focus on rule relevance and costs. This institutional framework for retrospective review – one rule, assessed by the promulgating agency, focused on relevance and cost – is only well-suited to a narrow interpretation of the rule improvement goal. We then review alternative institutional structures that could better meet the rule improvement goal and the broader regulatory learning goal across multiple rules and agencies, and we offer recommendations for developing new guidance and institutions to promote multiagency regulatory learning.

Overhaul of administrative procedures is an important part of most democratic transitions, and procedural regularization and transparency are often seen as steps toward the consolidation of democracy. Administrative procedures affect policy decisions, but whether particular procedural reforms facilitate or hinder democratic responsiveness depends on the details of the procedure and the political environment. In this article, we examine a particular procedural reform: the adoption of a sunset provision in Korea as part of an omnibus administrative procedures package at the end of Kim Young Sam's presidency. A sunset provision might be seen as clearly promoting democratic responsiveness by requiring the winner of the most recent election to explicitly decide whether to keep or drop old rules and regulations. Alternatively, it might be seen as limiting a democratically elected leader's ability to change policy in accordance with his mandate, by requiring expenditure of effort and resources just to maintain a status quo. We argue that the second interpretation applies to the Korean case. We use a spatial model and evidence from regulatory decisionmaking to argue that Kim Young Sam favored the sunset provision because it would constrain the policy decisions of future presidents. Our model offers an explanation for why Kim Young Sam would propose a sunset provision that limited the life of his own regulations.

Taiwan recently adopted a series of administrative reform laws designed to make the bureaucracy more transparent and allow public participation in regulatory policies. Because administrative reform limits the executive's power, it is clear why legislatures would favor strict administrative procedures. But it is less clear why presidents would support them. The passage of these laws begs the question why presidents support administrative procedural reforms designed to restrict their abilities to act freely. I argue that in Taiwan, President Lee Teng-hui's control of his party deteriorated as factional disputes within his own party increased over time. Lee ultimately concluded that the Kuomintang's political survival depended on major reforms. Consequently, the status quo-oriented bureaucracy—hitherto an important source of support for Lee and his key constituencies—became an impediment. Lee supported Taiwan's Administrative Procedure Act in order to reduce the bureaucracy's capacity to impede reform. More generally, I argue that administrative procedures designed to open up the bureaucracy to the public, including previously excluded groups, can serve politicians' goal of redirecting the bureaucracy. Archival data, secondary sources, and interviews with key presidential advisers, senior career bureaucrats, and politicians support my argument.