Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Inviting Outsiders In: Learning and Legitimation in Agency Policymaking

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Private information is a hallmark of bureaucratic power. On the one hand, specialized knowledge and skills are essential for agencies to perform their tasks effectively. On the other, however, such specialized knowledge may insulate agencies from democratic influence. Not surprisingly, Congress has created advisory committees composed of outside experts as a check on agencies' informational power. A growing literature on political control of the bureaucracy has called attention to these ancillary institutions. Yet, government agencies themselves have created hundreds public advisory committees to participate in agency policy-making. And, agencies call upon Congressionally created committees even when they are not mandated to do so. What explains this behavior? Under what conditions do agencies risk compromising private information to seek public advice? Are they able to do so in ways that augment their knowledge and policy-making leverage? This dissertation takes up these puzzles. This dissertation argues that capable agency leaders structure public advisory committee deliberations in ways consistent with supporting agency reputation for expertise. Existingscholarship focuses either on committees' informational contributions or on their potential to confer legitimacy. The concept of reputation, this research argues, invites us to understand learning and legitimation as two facets of an overarching bureaucratic goal, not as a dichotomy. An agency reputation for expertise, this research contends, hinges both on demonstrated agency capabilities and on external perceptions of agency policies and process. Developing and testing a theory of agency reputation for expertise in the context of public advisory committees advances extant scholarship in the fields bureaucratic politics, organization theory, and institutional theories of inter-branch relations. This research also bears on applied public policy issues of national importance: drug approval and national education testing. The dissertation employs large- sample statistical analysis coupled with analytic narratives to demonstrate whether and when agency leaders in the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Education structure public advisory committee deliberations in ways consistent with supporting agency reputation for expertise. These two agencies were selected for their important internal and cross-agency variation, which allow both within-agency and cross-agency generalizations. The overarching dependent variable in this work is advisory committee use measured systematically by looking at three sources of policy influence: agenda setting, participation and timing. Independent variables measure policy conditions including uncertainty, conflict, visibility, agency capability, and committee characteristics in addition to political variables. The research is designed to test rival hypotheses advanced in current scholarship.Preliminary results from the FDA suggest that by strategically compromising private information and inviting outsiders in, agencies can mobilize a valuable political resource: a reputation for expertise. Public information does not replace private information as a hallmark of bureaucratic power: wise agencies are judicious in their agenda setting strategies. But, public advice stands alongside private information as a potential source of bureaucratic power.