Premium
The Costs and Benefits of American Policy‐Making Venues
Author(s) -
Ley Aaron J.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/lasr.12059
Subject(s) - legislature , agency (philosophy) , legislative process , public policy , political science , law and economics , process (computing) , policy making , legal process , law , public administration , field (mathematics) , sociology , economics , social science , computer science , operating system , mathematics , pure mathematics
Many law and policy scholars consider judges inimical to good public policymaking, and the criticisms they level on the judiciary implicitly reflect some of the concerns raised by A lexander B ickel and other critics. Despite the charge by critics that judges are institutionally ill equipped to participate in the policy‐making process and that legal processes are costly, there are reasons to believe otherwise. This article uses field interviews and three case studies of an environmental dispute in the P acific N orthwest to show that the judiciary can be an institutional venue that enhances public input, can be more inclusive than other venues, and produces positive‐sum outcomes when other venues cannot. The findings also suggest that legislative and agency policymaking are just as contentious and costly as judicial policy‐making processes.