Doctoral Dissertation Research:How the Prospect of Judicial Review Shapes Bureaucratic Decision Making

许多观察人士认为，司法机构是美国政府最薄弱的部门，因为在没有国会和总统采取行动的情况下，司法机构无法单方面制定政策并执行国内政治变革。或许出于这个原因，现有的研究经常忽略了联邦机构如何从战略上预测法院在政策制定过程中的影响。这个项目考察了司法审查的前景在多大程度上影响了联邦机构在执行过程中的行为。它特别考虑：(1)官僚可能如何根据相关法院的意识形态组成改变他们的监管执法行为；以及(2)国会在授予官僚政策自由裁量权时考虑司法对联邦机构的潜在影响的程度。该项目构建了原始数据集，衡量环境保护局(EPA)、国家劳动关系委员会(NLRB)和联邦贸易委员会(FTC)的监管执法行为，以及国会向这些机构授予政策自由裁量权。以前的研究在很大程度上依赖于横断面数据，完全专注于单一机构的行为。同样，对联邦机构的司法影响的有限关注也不能使以前的学者对官僚决策过程中的机构间政治提供全面的解释。该项目将通过审查具有足够数据的多个官僚机构，在更长的时间跨度内进行纵向分析，从而加强对司法在决策过程中的影响的学术了解。此外，通过评估法院在决策过程中发挥的潜在作用，该项目将有助于研究机构间政治如何更广泛地影响对机关行为和官僚决策的监督。

Many observers view the judiciary as the weakest branch of American government due to its inability to unilaterally create policies and enforce change in domestic politics without the action of Congress and the president. Perhaps for this reason, existing research has often overlooked how federal agencies might strategically anticipate the influence of courts in the policymaking process. This project examines the extent to which the prospect of judicial review shapes the behavior of federal agencies in the enforcement process. In particular, it considers: (1) how bureaucrats might alter their regulatory enforcement behavior in light of the ideological composition of relevant courts; and (2) the degree to which Congress considers the potential for judicial influence on federal agencies when delegating bureaucratic policy discretion.This project constructs original data sets measuring regulatory enforcement behavior by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as well as congressional delegation of policy discretion to these various agencies. Previous studies largely rely on cross-sectional data and focus entirely on the behavior of a single agency. Similiarly, the limited attention to judicial influence on federal agencies does not enable previous scholars to offer a comprehensive account of interinstitutional politics in the bureaucratic policymaking process. This project will enhance scholarly understanding of judicial influence in the policymaking process by examining multiple bureaucratic agencies with sufficient data to conduct longitudinal analyses over a greater time span. Furthermore, by evaluating the potential role that courts play in the policymaking process, this project will contribute to the study of how interinstitutional politics shape oversight of agency behavior and bureaucratic decision making more generally.