Formal Models of Legislative Organization and the Decision to Delegate

立法组织的正式模式和授权决定

• 批准号: 9511628
• 负责人: Sharyn O'Halloran
• 金额: $ 10.96万
• 依托单位: Columbia University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1995
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1995-09-15 至 1997-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9511628&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Formal; Models; Legislative; Organization; Decision

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. ***

小行星9511628 最近关于实证政治理论的文献，涉及立法组织，行政程序，司法审查和比较政治制度等不同的主题，一贯认为政策制定的过程最终塑造了政治结果。 这一研究路线通常被称为“新制度主义”，它认为政治家的所作所为与他们的行事方式密切相关。在对美国政府的研究中，最重要的程序选择之一是，实质性的政策决定是由国会做出，还是委托给行政分支机构。 这个问题涉及权力分立制度下政策制定的核心，因为影响立法者的力量与影响官僚机构的力量截然不同。 本研究探讨国会是否将实质性自由裁量权授予行政分支的选择。 有人认为，国会授予权力只是为了转移对不受欢迎的政策决定的指责或保护受青睐的选民。 研究人员认为，相反，国会向行政分支授权可以被视为对国会政策制定效率低下的政治权宜之计。 因此，这项分析将立法组织的细节与国会与行政部门的关系和授权决定联系起来。 该项目包括三个核心组成部分。1)在公司理论的新进展的基础上，研究人员模拟了国会的决定，即“内部”制定政策或将政策制定交给官僚机构。 从这个模型中，他们得出了几个关于分裂的政府、委员会异常值和有组织的利益对国会授权决定以及授予执行机构的自由裁量权的影响的主张。 2)研究者从过去半个世纪颁布的重要立法中提取数据，对授权模型进行了实证检验。 这一数据集使研究人员能够跟踪跨问题领域和随时间推移的授权变化。 使用计量经济学的理论框架所建议的规格，他们测试了一系列的假设有关的政治条件，授权和机构的自由裁量权。 3）除了立法历史，研究人员还对国际贸易和环境监管两个政策领域进行了详细的案例研究。 这些案例研究调查授权的机构是否是固定不变的，还是可塑的，对政治环境的变化做出可预测的反应。 ***