IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/reggov/v3y2009i2p128-144.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Divided government and US federal rulemaking

Author

Listed:
  • Jason Webb Yackee
  • Susan Webb Yackee

Abstract

Despite paying a great deal of attention to the effects of divided government on legislative outputs, scholars of American politics have surprisingly ignored the potential impact of divided government on bureaucratic regulatory outputs. In this article we argue that divided government should reduce the volume of federal agency rulemaking. We test this hypothesis against a data set covering 21,000 rules from 1983 to 2005. Our study is one of the first to analyze the determinants of federal bureaucratic rulemaking activity across such a long period of time. Our results demonstrate that during periods of divided government, agencies issue fewer rules and fewer substantively significant rules than they do during periods of unified government. These findings suggest that divided government impedes agency rulemaking.

Suggested Citation

  • Jason Webb Yackee & Susan Webb Yackee, 2009. "Divided government and US federal rulemaking," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(2), pages 128-144, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:3:y:2009:i:2:p:128-144
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-5991.2009.01051.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5991.2009.01051.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1748-5991.2009.01051.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Binder, Sarah A., 1999. "The Dynamics of Legislative Gridlock, 1947–96," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(3), pages 519-533, September.
    2. Josep M. Colomer, 2005. "Policy making in divided government. A pivotal actors model with party discipline," Economics Working Papers 817, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    3. Tsebelis, George, 1999. "Veto Players and Law Production in Parliamentary Democracies: An Empirical Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(3), pages 591-608, September.
    4. Josep Colomer, 2005. "Policy making in divided government: A pivotal actors model with party discipline," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 247-269, December.
    5. Bendor, Jonathan & Moe, Terry M., 1985. "An Adaptive Model of Bureaucratic Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 755-774, September.
    6. Tsebelis, George, 1995. "Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 289-325, July.
    7. Coleman, John J., 1999. "Unified Government, Divided Government, and Party Responsiveness," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(4), pages 821-835, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brian D. Feinstein & Jennifer Nou, 2023. "Strategic subdelegation," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(4), pages 746-817, December.
    2. Jisun Youm & Jessica Terman, 2020. "Dynamic Collaboration: The Effects of External Rules and Collaboration Scope on Interlocal Collaboration," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 37(6), pages 823-841, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heike Klüver & Iñaki Sagarzazu, 2013. "Ideological congruency and decision-making speed: The effect of partisanship across European Union institutions," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 388-407, September.
    2. Curto-Grau, Marta & Zudenkova, Galina, 2018. "Party discipline and government spending: Theory and evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 139-152.
    3. Gabriele Gratton & Massimo Morelli, 2022. "Optimal Checks And Balances Under Policy Uncertainty," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(2), pages 549-569, May.
    4. Bernecker, Andreas, 2016. "Divided we reform? Evidence from US welfare policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 24-38.
    5. Dimiter Toshkov, 2011. "Public opinion and policy output in the European Union: A lost relationship," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 169-191, June.
    6. Zudenkova, Galina, 2012. "A rationale for intra-party democracy," MPRA Paper 39091, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Schelker, Mark, 2018. "Lame ducks and divided government: How voters control the unaccountable," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 131-144.
    8. Ali Akarca, 2018. "Political Determinants of Government Structure and Economic Performance in Turkey since 1950," Working Papers 1241, Economic Research Forum, revised 23 Oct 2018.
    9. Michael J. Ireland & Scott Sigmund Gartner, 2001. "Time to Fight," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 45(5), pages 547-568, October.
    10. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "A Model of Party Discipline in a Congress," Working Papers 2072/151813, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    11. Myunghoon Kang, 2017. "Representation, sophisticated voting, and the size of the gridlock region," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(4), pages 623-646, October.
    12. Hideko Magara, 2013. "Introduction: two decades of structural reform and political change in Italy and Japan," Chapters, in: Hideko Magara & Stefano Sacchi (ed.), The Politics of Structural Reforms, chapter 1, pages 1-24, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Niklas Potrafke, 2006. "Parties Matter in Allocating Expenditures: Evidence from Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 652, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Patrick Mardini, 2015. "The Endangered Classical Liberal Tradition in Lebanon: A General Description and Survey Results," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 12(2), pages 242–259-2, May.
    15. Pierre Mandon & Clément Mathonnat, 2014. "Forms of Democracies and Financial Development," CERDI Working papers halshs-01084679, HAL.
    16. Hallerberg, Mark, 2000. "The importance of domestic political institutions: Why and how Belgium and Italy qualified for EMU," ZEI Working Papers B 10-2000, University of Bonn, ZEI - Center for European Integration Studies.
    17. Troeger, Vera, 2012. "De Facto Capital Mobility, Equality, and Tax Policy in Open Economies," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 84, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    18. Amihai Glazer & Anthony McGann, 2005. "Direct Democracy and the Stability of State Policy," Working Papers 050615, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    19. Fuchs, Dieter, 2000. "Typen und Indizes demokratischer Regime: Eine Analyse des Präsidentialismus- und des Veto-Spieler-Ansatzes," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Institutions and Social Change FS III 00-205, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    20. Zhiyuan Wang & Hyunjin Youn, 2018. "Locating the External Source of Enforceability: Alliances, Bilateral Investment Treaties, and Foreign Direct Investment," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 99(1), pages 80-96, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:3:y:2009:i:2:p:128-144. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-5991 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.