Formal Models of Legislative Organization and the Decision to Delegate

9511628 O‘Halloran最近关于积极政治理论的文献，涉及立法组织、行政程序、司法审查和比较政治制度等不同主题，始终假设制定政策的过程最终塑造了政治结果。通常被称为“新制度主义”的这一系列研究断言，政治家的所作所为与他们的所作所为密切相关。在对美国政府的研究中，最重要的程序性选择之一是，实质性的决策是由国会做出还是授权给一个行政部门机构。这个问题切中了三权分立体制下政策制定的核心，因为对立法者施加的力量与影响官僚机构的力量是截然不同的。目前的研究调查了国会对是否将实质性自由裁量权授予行政部门的选择。有人认为，国会授权只是为了转移对不受欢迎的政策决定的指责，或者是为了保护受到青睐的选民。相反，研究人员认为，国会授权行政部门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，这一分析将立法组织的细节与国会-行政关系和授权决定联系起来。该项目包含三个主要组成部分。1)在企业理论的新进展的基础上，研究人员模拟了国会的决策，即制定政策“内部”或将政策制定转包给官僚机构。从这个模型中，他们得出了几个关于分裂的政府、委员会的异常值和有组织的利益对国会授权决定的影响，以及授予行政机构的自由裁量权的几个命题。2)调查人员使用从过去半个世纪颁布的重要立法中获得的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着时间的推移授权的变化。利用理论框架提出的计量经济规范，他们检验了一系列假设，这些假设将政治条件与授权和机构自由裁量权联系起来。3)除了立法史外，研究人员还对国际贸易和环境监管这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机构是否是固定的、不变的，或可伸展的，对政治环境的变化做出可预测的反应。***

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. ***