Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-q9hcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-10T05:55:47.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Who Polices the Administrative State?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2018

KENNETH LOWANDE
KENNETH LOWANDE*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
Kenneth Lowande is an Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, 5700 Haven Hall, 505 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1045 ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Scholarship on oversight of the bureaucracy typically conceives of legislatures as unitary actors. But most oversight is conducted by individual legislators who contact agencies directly. I acquire the correspondence logs of 16 bureaucratic agencies and re-evaluate the conventional proposition that ideological disagreement drives oversight. I identify the effect of this disagreement by exploiting the transition from George Bush to Barack Obama, which shifted the ideological orientation of agencies through turnover in agency personnel. Contrary to existing research, I find ideological conflict has a negligible effect on oversight, whereas committee roles and narrow district interests are primary drivers. The findings may indicate that absent incentives induced by public auditing, legislator behavior is driven by policy valence concerns rather than ideology. The results further suggest collective action in Congress may pose greater obstacles to bureaucratic oversight than previously thought.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 112 , Issue 4 , November 2018 , pp. 874 - 890
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

Previous versions were presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, the 2017 Political Economy and Public Law Conference, and the 2017 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. Randy Calvert, Andrew Clarke, Anthony Fowler, Justin Fox, Thomas Gray, Jeff Jenkins, David Lewis, Jose Mendez, Jason Oh, Rachel Potter, and Craig Volden provided helpful suggestions. Special thanks to Claire Lowande and Michael Pomirchy for help with the project, as well as Russell Mills and Nikki Kalaf-Hughes for sharing their data. Support for this research was provided by the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University. Replication materials are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/LFQZVU.

References

REFERENCES

Aberbach, Joel. 1990. Keeping a Watchful Eye: The Politics of Congressional Oversight. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Aronow, Peter M., and Samii, Cyrus. 2016. “Does Regression Produce Representative Estimates of Causal Effects?” American Journal of Political Science 60 (1): 250–67.Google Scholar
Austen-Smith, David, and Wright, John R.. 1994. “Counteractive Lobbying.” American Journal of Political Science 38 (1): 25–44.Google Scholar
Berry, Christopher R., and Fowler, Anthony. 2015. “Cardinals or Clerics? Congressional Committees and the Distribution of Pork.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (3): 692–708.Google Scholar
Bolton, Alexander, de Figueiredo, John, and Lewis, David E.. 2017. “Elections, Ideology, and Turnover in the Federal Government.” Working paper. Duke University.Google Scholar
Bonica, Adam. 2013. “Mapping the Ideological Marketplace.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (2): 367–86.Google Scholar
Bonica, Adam, Chen, Jowei, and Johnson, Timothy. 2015. “Senate Gate-Keeping, Presidential Staffing of ‘Inferior Offices,’ and the Ideological Composition of Appointments to the Public Bureaucracy.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 10 (1): 5–40.Google Scholar
Bronstein, Scott, and Griffin, Drew. 2014. “A fatal wait: Veterans languish and die on a VA hospital’s secret list,” CNN, April 23, 2014. http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/23/health/veterans-dying-health-care-delays/Google Scholar
Callander, Steven, and Martin, Gregory J.. 2017. “Dynamic Policymaking with Decay.” American Journal of Political Science 61 (1): 50–67.Google Scholar
Callander, Steven, and Raiha, Davin. 2017. “Durable Policy, Political Accountability, and Active Waste.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 12 (1): 59–97.Google Scholar
Carpenter, Daniel. 2013. “On Categories and the Countability of Things Bureaucratic.” Working paper. Harvard University.Google Scholar
Carroll, Royce, Lewis, Jeff, Lo, James, McCarty, Nolan M., Poole, Keith, and Rosenthal, Howard. 2015. “‘Common Space’ DW-NOMINATE Scores with Bootstrapped Standard Errors.”Google Scholar
Chen, Jowei, and Johnson, Timothy. 2014. “Federal Employee Unionization and Presidential Control of the Bureaucracy: Estimating and Explaining Ideological Change in Executive Agencies.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 101 (4): 657–76.Google Scholar
Clinton, Joshua D., and Lewis, David E.. 2008. “Expert Opinion, Agency Characteristics, and Agency Preferences.” Political Analysis 16 (1): 3–20.Google Scholar
Clinton, Joshua D., Lewis, David E., and Selin, Jennifer L.. 2014. “Influencing the Bureaucracy: The Irony of Congressional Oversight.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (2): 387–401.Google Scholar
Dahlström, Carl, and Holmgren, Mikael. 2017. “The Political Dynamics of Bureaucratic Turnover.” British Journal of Political Science, 1–14. Published Online September 4, 2017.Google Scholar
Dodd, Lawrence C., and Schott, Richard L.. 1979. Congress and the Administrative State. New York: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Elliot, Justin. 2017 “How the Trump Administration Responds to Democrats’ Demands for Information: It Doesn’t.” ProPublica, March 30 Accessed August 17, 2017. URL: https://goo.gl/bRgrC4Google Scholar
Ensley, Michael J. 2009. “Individual Campaign Contributions and Candidate Ideology.” Public Choice 138 (1–2): 221–38.Google Scholar
Epstein, David, and O’Halloran, Sharyn. 1999. Delegating Powers: A Transaction Cost Politics Approach to Policy Making Under Separate Powers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fouirnaies, Alexander, and Hall, Andrew B.. 2018. “How Do Interest Groups Seek Access to Committees?” 62 (1): 132–47.Google Scholar
Fowler, Linda L. 2015. Watchdogs on the Hill: The Decline of Congressional Oversight of U.S. Foreign Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gailmard, Sean. 2009. “Multiple Principals and Oversight of Bureaucratic Policy-Making.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 21 (2): 161–86.Google Scholar
Gimpel, James G., Lee, Frances E., and Pearson-Merkowitz, Shanna. 2008. “The Check Is in the Mail: Interdistrict Funding Flows in Congressional Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 52 (2): 1–23.Google Scholar
Gordon, Sanford C., Hafer, Catherine, and Landa, Dimitri. 2007. “Consumption or Investment? On Motivations for Political Giving.” The Journal of Politics 69 (4): 1057–72.Google Scholar
Government Accountability Office. 2013. “VA Health Care: Report Outpatient Medical Appointment Wait Times are Unreliable,” Statement for the Record by Debra A. Draper, February 13, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives.Google Scholar
Grimmer, Justin, and Stewart, Brandon M.. 2013. “Text as Data: The Promise and Pitfalls of Automatic Content Analysis Methods for Political Texts.” Political Analysis 21 (3): 267–97.Google Scholar
Hall, Richard L., and Deardorff, Alan V.. 2006. “Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy.” American Political Science Review 100 (1): 1073–88.Google Scholar
Hall, Richard L., and Reynolds, Molly E.. 2012. “Targeted Issue Advertising and Legislative Strategy: The Inside Ends of Outside Lobbying.” Journal of Politics 74 (3): 888–902.Google Scholar
Hammond, Thomas H., and Knott, Jack H.. 1996. “Who Controls the Bureaucracy? Presidential Power, Congressional Dominance, Legal Constraints, and Bureaucratic Autonomy in a Model of Multi-Institutional Policy-Making.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 12 (1): 119–66.Google Scholar
Hitt, Matthew P., Volden, Craig, and Wiseman, Alan E.. 2017. “Spatial Models of Legislative Effectiveness.” American Journal of Political Science 61 (3): 575–90.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Daniel J., and King, Gary. 2010. “A Method of Automated Nonparametric Content Analysis for Social Science.” American Journal of Political Science 54 (1): 229–47.Google Scholar
Imai, Kosuke, and Tingley, Dustin. 2012. “A Statistical Method for Empirical Testing of Competing Theories.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1): 218–36.Google Scholar
Kousser, Thad, Lewis, Jeffrey B., and Masket, Seth E.. 2007. “Ideological Adaptation? The Survival Instinct of Threatened Legislators.” The Journal of Politics 69 (3): 828–43.Google Scholar
Kriner, Douglas L., and Schickler, Eric. 2014. “Investigating the President: Committee Probes and Presidential Approval, 1953–2006.” The Journal of Politics 76 (2): 521–34.Google Scholar
Kriner, Douglas L., and Schickler, Eric. 2016. Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kriner, Douglas L., and Schwartz, Liam. 2008. “Divided Government and Congressional Investigations.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 33 (2): 295–321.Google Scholar
Lewis, David E. 2007. “Testing Pendleton’s Premise: Do Political Appointees Make Worse Bureaucrats?” The Journal of Politics 69 (4): 1073–88.Google Scholar
Lewis, David E. 2008. The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Light, Paul C. 2014. Government by Investigation: Congress, Presidents, and the Search for Answers, 1945–2012. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Lillis, Mike. 2015. “Pelosi threatens to end Dem participation in Benghazi probe,” The Hill, October 1 (accessed August 18, 2017): URL: https://goo.gl/57Fipo.Google Scholar
Lowande, Kenneth. Forthcoming. “Politicization and Responsiveness in Executive Agencies.” The Journal of Politics.Google Scholar
Lowande, Kenneth, and Peck, Justin. 2017. “Congressional Investigations and the Electoral Connection.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 33 (1): 1–27.Google Scholar
Lupia, Arthur, and McCubbins, Matthew D.. 1994. “Learning from Oversight : Fire Alarms and Police Patrols Reconstructed.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 10 (1): 96–125.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Jason A., and McGrath, Robert J.. 2016. “Retrospective Congressional Oversight and the Dynamics of Legislative Influence over the Bureaucracy.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 41 (4): 899–934.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David R. 1991. Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking, and Investigations, 1946–2002. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
McCubbins, Matthew D., and Schwartz, Thomas. 1984. “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms.” American Journal of Political Science 28 (1): 165–79.Google Scholar
McGrath, Robert J. 2013. “Congressional Oversight Hearings and Policy Control.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 38 (3): 349–76.Google Scholar
Mills, Russell W., Kalaf-Hughes, Nicole, and MacDonald, Jason A.. 2016. “Agency Policy Preferences, Congressional Letter-Marking and the Allocation of Distributive Policy Benefits.” Journal of Public Policy 36 (4): 547–71.Google Scholar
Moe, Terry M. 2012. “Delegation, Control, and the Study of Public Bureaucracy.” The Forum 10 (2): 1–45.Google Scholar
Mummolo, Jonathan, and Peterson, Erik. 2018 “Improving the Interpretation of Fixed Effects Regression Results.” Political Science Research and Methods, 1–7. Published Online January 11, 2018.Google Scholar
Office of Legal Counsel, White House. 2012 “Authority of Individual Members of Congress to Conduct Oversight of the Executive Branch,” May 1, 2017.Google Scholar
Ogul, Morris S., and Rockman, Bert A.. 1990. “Overseeing Oversight: New Departures and Old Problems.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 80 (3): 485–502.Google Scholar
Powell, Eleanor Neff, and Grimmer, Justin. 2016. “Money in Exile: Campaign Contributions and Committee Access.” The Journal of Politics 78 (4): 974–88.Google Scholar
Rainey, Carlisle. 2014. “Arguing for a Negligible Effect.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (4): 1083–91.Google Scholar
Rezaee, Janna, Wood, Abby K., and Gailmard, Sean. 2015. “Bureaucratic Agency Problems and Legislative Oversight.” Working paper. University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Richardson, Mark D. Forthcoming. “Politicization and Expertise: Exit, Effort, and Investment.” Journal of Politics.Google Scholar
Richardson, Mark D., Clinton, Joshua D., and Lewis, David E.. 2018 “Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill.” The Journal of Politics 80 (1): 303–8.Google Scholar
Ritchie, Melinda, and You, Hye Young. 2018. “Legislators as Lobbyists.” Working paper. University of California.Google Scholar
Selin, Jennifer L. 2015. “What Makes an Agency Independent?” American Journal of Political Science 59 (4): 971–87.Google Scholar
Tausanovitch, Chris, and Warshaw, Christopher. 2013. “Measuring Constituent Policy Preferences in Congress, State Legislatures, and Cities.” The Journal of Politics 75 (2): 330–42.Google Scholar
Ting, Michael M. 2011. “Organizational Capacity.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 27 (2): 245–71.Google Scholar
Weingast, Barry R., and Moran, Mark J.. 1983. “Bureaucratic Discretion or Congressional Control? Regulatory Policymaking by the Federal Trade Commission.” Journal of Political Economy 91 (5): 765–800.Google Scholar
Wiseman, Alan E., and Wright, John R.. 2015. “Delegation and Bureaucratic Policymaking in the Presence of Binding Legal Constraints: Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There. . . .” Working paper. Vanderbilt University.Google Scholar
Wood, Abby, and Lewis, David E.. 2017. “Agency Performance Challenges and Agency Politicization.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 27 (4): 581–95.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Lowande supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Lowande supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 301.8 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.