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

博士论文研究：司法审查的前景如何塑造官僚决策

• 批准号: 0921670
• 负责人: Georg Vanberg
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-15 至 2010-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0921670&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; How; Prospect

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.

许多观察家认为司法部门是美国政府最薄弱的部门，因为如果没有国会和总统的行动，司法部门无法单方面制定政策并强制实施国内政治变革。也许出于这个原因，现有的研究经常忽视联邦机构如何战略性地预测法院在政策制定过程中的影响。该项目研究了司法审查的前景在多大程度上影响联邦机构在执法过程中的行为。它特别考虑：（1）官僚如何根据相关法院的意识形态构成改变其监管执行行为； (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，以及国会向这些不同机构授予的政策自由裁量权。以前的研究很大程度上依赖于横截面数据，并完全关注单个机构的行为。同样，对司法对联邦机构的影响的有限关注使得先前的学者无法对官僚决策过程中的机构间政治进行全面的解释。该项目将通过审查多个官僚机构并提供足够的数据来在更大的时间跨度内进行纵向分析，从而增强对司法在政策制定过程中影响力的学术理解。此外，通过评估法院在政策制定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构行为和官僚决策的监督。