POLITICAL CONTROL, BUREAUCRATIC DISCRETION, AND PUBLIC COMMENTING ON AGENCY REGULATIONS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Balla, Steven J.
• 署名单位: George Washington University
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3298
• DOI: 10.1111/padm.12137
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 524-538
• 关键词: ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES; rulemaking; POLICY

摘要

In recent years, the accessibility and transparency of administrative procedures have attracted the attention of researchers and policymakers in the United States. This article investigates the accessibility and transparency of a particularly important administrative procedure, the notice and comment process. The article presents a theoretical account of the operation of political control and bureaucratic discretion in two aspects of the notice and comment process - the duration of comment periods and timeliness of the circulation of comments. The results of the analysis of original data demonstrate that both external constraints and agency need for policy information affect the duration of comment periods and circulation of comments. These results, which are unexpected from the perspective that the notice and comment process is procedurally neutral, imply that normative values such as accessibility and transparency cannot be meaningfully separated from the politics of political control and bureaucratic discretion.