Formal Models of Legislative Organization and the Decision to Delegate

9511628 O'Halloran Recent literature on positive political theory, addressing such diverse topics as legislative organization, administrative procedures, judicial review, and comparative political institutions, consistently posits that the process by which policy is made ultimately shapes political outcomes. Known generally as the 'new institutionalism,' this line of research asserts that what politicians do is intimately linked to how they do it. In the study of American government, one of the most important procedural choices is whether substantive policy decisions will be made by congress or delegated to an executive branch agency. This question goes to the very heart of policy making in a separation of powers system, as the forces brought to bear on legislators are quite distinct from those affecting bureaucratic agencies. The current research investigates Congress's choice of whether or not to delegate substantive discretionary authority to the executive branch. It has been argued that Congress delegates authority merely to shift the blame for unpopular policy decisions or to protect favored constituents. The researchers suggest instead that congressional delegation to the executive branch can be seen as a politically expedient response to the inefficiencies of congressional policy making. Thus, this analysis links the details of legislative organization to congressional-executive relations and the decision to delegate. The project contains three central components. 1)Building on new advances in the theory of the firm, the researchers model Congress's decision to produce policy 'in-house' or subcontract policy making to the bureaucracy. From this model, they derive several propositions about the impact of divided government, committee outliers, and organized interests on Congress's decision to delegate, and on the amount of discretion granted to executive agencies. 2) The investigators empirically test the model of delegation with data drawn from important legislation enacted over the past half century. This data set allows the researchers to track changes in delegation both across issue areas and over time. Using the econometric specifications suggested by the theoretical framework they test a series of hypotheses relating political conditions to delegation and agency discretion. 3)In addition to legislative histories, the researchers conduct detailed case studies of two policy areas, international trade and environmental regulation. These case studies investigate whether the institutions of delegation are fixed and unchanging, or malleable, responding predictably to changes in the political environment. ***