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The U.S. Congress and the Institutional Design of Agencies
Author(s) -
MACDONALD JASON A.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
legislative studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.728
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1939-9162
pISSN - 0362-9805
DOI - 10.3162/036298007781699690
Subject(s) - agency (philosophy) , bureaucracy , politics , variance (accounting) , public administration , point (geometry) , control (management) , political science , principal–agent problem , empirical research , public relations , law and economics , economics , sociology , law , accounting , management , social science , corporate governance , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , epistemology
Theories of agency design maintain that lawmakers impose requirements on how bureaucratic agencies make policy decisions, preventing those agencies from undermining lawmakers' political and policy goals. Empirical support for these theories is limited, however, by the difficulty of measuring critical variables hypothesized to influence the use of this tool of political control. For this study, I employed a methodology particularly well suited, but not previously employed, to study variance in the use of agency‐design provisions: interviews with congressional committee staff. Staffers' responses support several theories, cast doubt on one explanation, and point to nuances in other explanations of agency design.