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Regulatory Regimes, Agency Actions, and the Conditional Nature of Congressional Influence

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  • SHIPAN, CHARLES R.

Abstract

Political bureaucracies make the overwhelming majority of public policy decisions in the United States. To examine the extent to which these agency actions are responsive to the preferences of elected officials, in particular, Congress, I develop a spatial model of oversight. The most important insight of this theory is that agencies make policy decisions within given regimes and may be constrained by the preferences of different political actors at different times. To test the theory, I collect and analyze data on the monitoring activities of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). I find that under certain conditions, the FDA is responsive to the preferences of committees and floors in Congress, but under other conditions the agency can act autonomously.

Suggested Citation

  • Shipan, Charles R., 2004. "Regulatory Regimes, Agency Actions, and the Conditional Nature of Congressional Influence," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(3), pages 467-480, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:98:y:2004:i:03:p:467-480_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan B Slapin, 2014. "Measurement, model testing, and legislative influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(1), pages 24-42, March.
    2. Adam R. Fremeth & Guy L. F. Holburn & Richard G. Vanden Bergh, 2016. "Corporate Political Strategy in Contested Regulatory Environments," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(4), pages 272-284, December.
    3. Christian Almer & Timo Goeschl, 2011. "The political economy of the environmental criminal justice system: a production function approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 611-630, September.
    4. Ian R Turner, 2017. "Working smart and hard? Agency effort, judicial review, and policy precision," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(1), pages 69-96, January.
    5. Indri Dwi Apriliyanti & Marleen Dieleman & Trond Randøy, 2024. "Multiple‐Principal Demands and CEO Compliance in Emerging Market State‐Owned Enterprises," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(6), pages 2406-2436, September.
    6. Israel Marques II, 2022. "Skipping Out On The Check: Institutional Quality, Tax Evasion, And Individual Preferences For Social Policy," HSE Working papers WP BRP 85/PS/2022, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    7. Karen Maguire, 2013. "Drill Baby Drill? Political and Market Influences on Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing in the Western United States," Economics Working Paper Series 1401, Oklahoma State University, Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business, revised Apr 2013.
    8. Matthew E.K. Hall, 2017. "Macro Implementation: Testing the Causal Paths from U.S. Macro Policy to Federal Incarceration," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(2), pages 438-455, April.
    9. Maguire, Karen, 2012. "Prices or politics? The influence of markets and political party changes on oil and gas development in the United States," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 2013-2020.
    10. Fremeth, Adam R. & Holburn, Guy L. F. & Piazza, Alessandro, 2021. "Activist Protest Spillovers into the Regulatory Domain: Theory and Evidence from the U.S. Nuclear Power Generation Industry," OSF Preprints s39h2, Center for Open Science.
    11. Choi, Dahyun, 2025. "How Politics Percolates Through Science Assessment," OSF Preprints ujyec, Center for Open Science.
    12. Boland, Matthew & Godsell, David, 2021. "Bureaucratic discretion and contracting outcomes," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    13. Yue, Heng & Zhang, Liandong & Zhong, Qinlin, 2022. "The politics of bank opacity," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2).
    14. Eran Vigoda-Gadot & Aviv Shoham & Dana R Vashdi, 2010. "Bridging bureaucracy and democracy in Europe: A comparative study of perceived managerial excellence, satisfaction with public services, and trust in governance," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(2), pages 289-308, June.

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