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Expert Opinion, Agency Characteristics, and Agency Preferences

Author

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  • Clinton, Joshua D.
  • Lewis, David E.

Abstract

The study of bureaucracies and their relationship to political actors is central to understanding the policy process in the United States. Studying this aspect of American politics is difficult because theories of agency behavior, effectiveness, and control often require measures of administrative agencies' policy preferences, and appropriate measures are hard to find for a broad spectrum of agencies. We propose a method for measuring agency preferences based upon an expert survey of agency preferences for 82 executive agencies in existence between 1988 and 2005. We use a multirater item response model to provide a principled structure for combining subjective ratings based on scholarly and journalistic expertise with objective data on agency characteristics. We compare the resulting agency preference estimates and standard errors to existing alternative measures, discussing both the advantages and limitations of the method.

Suggested Citation

  • Clinton, Joshua D. & Lewis, David E., 2008. "Expert Opinion, Agency Characteristics, and Agency Preferences," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 3-20, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:polals:v:16:y:2008:i:01:p:3-20_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Jerry Ellig & Patrick A. McLaughlin & John F. Morrall III, 2013. "Continuity, change, and priorities: The quality and use of regulatory analysis across US administrations," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(2), pages 153-173, June.
    2. Brian D. Feinstein & Jennifer Nou, 2023. "Strategic subdelegation," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(4), pages 746-817, December.
    3. Stuart Kasdin & Luona Lin, 2015. "Strategic behavior by federal agencies in the allocation of public resources," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 309-329, September.
    4. Jerry Ellig & Christopher Conover, 2014. "Presidential priorities, congressional control, and the quality of regulatory analysis: an application to healthcare and homeland security," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 305-320, December.
    5. Moshe Maor, 2016. "Missing Areas in the Bureaucratic Reputation Framework," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(2), pages 80-90.
    6. Kyle L Marquardt, 2020. "How and how much does expert error matter? Implications for quantitative peace research," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(6), pages 692-700, November.
    7. Min-Seok Pang, 2017. "Politics and Information Technology Investments in the U.S. Federal Government in 2003–2016," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(1), pages 33-45, March.
    8. Jowei Chen & Tim Johnson, 2015. "Federal employee unionization and presidential control of the bureaucracy: Estimating and explaining ideological change in executive agencies," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(1), pages 151-174, January.
    9. Luis F. Espinoza-Audelo & Maricruz Olazabal-Lugo & Fabio Blanco-Mesa & Ernesto León-Castro & Victor Alfaro-Garcia, 2020. "Bonferroni Probabilistic Ordered Weighted Averaging Operators Applied to Agricultural Commodities’ Price Analysis," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-16, August.
    10. Greg Sasso, 2020. "Delegation and political turnover," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(2), pages 262-288, April.
    11. Breig, Zachary & Downey, Mitch, 2021. "Agency breadth and political influence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 253-268.
    12. Høyland, Bjørn & Moene, Karl & Willumsen, Fredrik, 2012. "The tyranny of international index rankings," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 1-14.
    13. Steven J. Balla & Bridget C. E. Dooling & Daniel R. Pérez, 2023. "Beyond republicans and the disapproval of regulations: A new empirical approach to the Congressional Review Act," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(2), pages 472-484, June.
    14. Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan & Landa, Dimitri, 2015. "Political accountability and sequential policymaking," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 95-108.
    15. Ilya Solntsev & Anatoly Vorobyev & Elnura Irmatova & Nikita Osokin, 2016. "Rating evaluation of sports development efficiency using statistical analysis: evidence from Russian football," Papers 1612.07543, arXiv.org.
    16. Stephen A Meserve & Sivagaminathan Palani & Daniel Pemstein, 2018. "Measuring candidate selection mechanisms in European elections: Comparing formal party rules to candidate survey responses," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(1), pages 185-202, March.
    17. Jerry Ellig, 2021. "Coproduction of regulations under the administrative procedure act: How close is the US to a classical Liberal regulatory system?," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 373-391, September.
    18. Christoph Engel, 2024. "The German Constitutional Court – Activist, but not Partisan?," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2024_04, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.

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