Issue-Specific Political Uncertainty and Policy Insulation in US Federal Agencies

Policymakers may take a number of measures to keep their preferred policies intact in the face of political threats. Scholars have explored this phenomenon extensively, formulating and testing models of delegation and insulation. But existing models have conflicting and nuanced empirical implications. I contend that the general and coherent implications of delegation and insulation theories can be realized by focusing on the politics of particular issue areas and by reconsidering a recent formalization of Terry Moe's theory of policy insulation. I examine this argument empirically using augmented versions of prominent data sets on statutory delegation and agency design in the United States. The analysis yields results consistent with the proposition that issue-specific political uncertainty leads to policy insulation. The explanatory power of measures of issue-specific policy volatility and conflict (proxies for political uncertainty) rivals that of the interbranch conflict measures that existing research tends to emphasize. The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Yale University. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.