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

许多观察家认为，司法部门是美国政府最薄弱的分支，因为它无法在没有国会和总统的行动的情况下单方面制定政策和实施国内政治变革。也许正是出于这个原因，现有的研究往往忽视了联邦机构如何在战略上预测法院在决策过程中的影响。本项目考察司法审查的前景在何种程度上塑造了联邦机构在执行过程中的行为。委员会尤其认为：（1）官僚如何根据相关法院的意识形态构成来改变其监管执行行为;以及（2）国会在授权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。本项目构建了测量环境保护局（EPA）、国家劳工关系委员会（NLRB）、和联邦贸易委员会（FTC），以及国会对这些不同机构的政策自由裁量权。以前的研究主要依赖于横截面数据，并完全集中在一个单一的机构的行为。类似地，对司法对联邦机构影响的有限关注使以前的学者无法全面地描述官僚决策过程中的机构间政治。该项目将通过审查多个官僚机构，利用足够的数据在更长的时间跨度内进行纵向分析，加强对司法在决策过程中的影响的学术理解。此外，通过评估法院在决策过程中发挥的潜在作用，本项目将有助于研究机构间政治如何塑造对机构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.