from Part III - Anxieties of Governance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2019
How is partisan polarization affecting the modern administrative state. Research suggests that despite a polarized Congress and a (somewhat) polarized electorate, agency policy choices do not seem to be moving systematically toward the extremes.Some combination of moderating effects seem to be at work, including the effect of divided government on appointments, agency preferences driven by moderate statutory mandates and/or the norms of issue networks, and (at times) the influence of ideologically moderate presidents on the size of the gridlock interval. The Trump administration may represent a departure from these norms: conservatives in the Trump coalition may be freer to pursue policies disfavored by a majority because of populist loyalty to the administration. Regardless, polarization-induced congressional gridlock poses ongoing challenges for the administrative state. Agencies must address problems within their jurisdiction in the absence of congressional input, using statutes that may have been poorly designed for the purpose.Courts will continue to struggle, case by case, with the implications for the constitutional legitimacy of agency policymaking.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.