Journal Articles

Working smart and hard? Agency effort, judicial review, and policy precision

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The lion’s share of policy in the United States is made by administrative agencies. Agencies not
only make policy choices, they must also implement policy effectively. Oversight institutions play an integral role in the policymaking process by monitoring, through review of agency policy
actions, both policymaking tasks. Through analysis of a formal model I develop a theory of
policymaking between agencies and courts and show that review can impact agency effort
choices even when bureaucratic subversion is not a concern. At times the court has no impact on
this effort and the agency is unconstrained. However, when the agency’s effort dictates whether
or not the court defers to the agency’s actions judicial review does affect effort decisions. In this
setting, review can either strengthen or, counter-intuitively, weaken agency effort incentives.
Implications for executive and congressional oversight are discussed in light of these results.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Journal of Theoretical Politics

Call Number

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Publisher

Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage Publications., 2017

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0951-6298

Classification

NONE

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 29, Issue 1, January 2017; pp. 69–96

Subject(s)

Bureaucracy
Intergovernmental relations
policymaking
Formal theory
oversight
juducial review

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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