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   Book Info

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Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design: Political Insulation in the United States Government Bureaucracy, 1946-1997  
Author: David E. Lewis
ISBN: 0804745900
Format: Handover
Publish Date: June, 2005
 
     
     
   Book Review
Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design: Political Insulation in the United States Government Bureaucracy, 1946-1997

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"The administrative state is the nexus of American policy making in the postwar period. The vague and sometimes conflicting policy mandates of Congress, the president, and courts get translated into real public policy in the bureaucracy. As the role of the national government has expanded, the national legislature and executive have increasingly delegated authority to administrative agencies to make fundamental policy decisions. How this administrative state is designed, its coherence, its responsiveness, and its efficacy determine, in Robert Dahl's phrase, "who gets what, when, and how." This study of agency design thus has implications for the study of politics in many areas." "The structure of bureaucracies can determine the degree to which political actors can change the direction of agency policy. Politicians frequently attempt to lock their policy preferences into place through insulating structures that are mandated by statute or executive decree. This insulation of public bureaucracies, such as the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Election Commission, and the National Nuclear Security Administration, is essential to understanding both administrative policy outputs and executive-legislative politics in the United States." This book explains why, when, and how political actors create administrative agencies in such a way as to insulate them from political control, particularly presidential control.

SYNOPSIS

Building on the theoretical tools developed under the rubric of the "New Economics of Organization" developed by such scholars as Morris Fiorina and Terry Moe, Lewis (politics, Princeton U.) presents a theory of government agency design process that sees the constitutional separation of powers and partisan politics as the main drivers of agency design. He tests his theory with case studies of the National Biological Service and the National Nuclear Security Agency, focusing on how Congress and the President struggle over levels of political insulation built into agencies. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

     



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