Agency Spending and Political Control of the Bureacracy

Berry, Christopher R.; Gersen, Jacob E.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1641356

Cited by 8 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Most, if not all of these contributions embrace a similar focus (a contractual approach to political–regulatory relations), a similar orientation (driven by a strong interest for hierarchical control) and common methodological approaches, anchored in the formal or quantitative study of principal–agent relationships (Moe 1984). A similar statement also applies to the numerous contributions in economics (Laffont & Tirole 1993) and administrative law (e.g., Berry & Gersen 2017) that examine similar or related topics. In spite of undeniable controversies and internal debates, most also picture the regulatory order in the United States in a similar fashion, namely as being a political product by design .…”

Section: The Regulatory Politics That Principals Makementioning

confidence: 78%

Politicians, regulators, and regulatory governance: The neglected sides of the story

Benoît

2021

Regulation & Governance

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We offer a series of reflective insights about the state and direction of studies related to the politics of regulation. Notably we argue that the field is characterized by persisting divisions between Americanists and Europeanists. Largely focused on the actions taken by political principals, the former regularly report a substantial politicization of regulatory behavior. Reflecting on recent developments in US politics however, we show that political influence could be overestimated in the United States. Symmetrically, this same influence could be underestimated by Europeanists, who for now have largely focused on regulators and agencies. This is notably suggested by a discussion of recent development in European politics, as revealed by contributions systematically measuring agency politicization in Western European democracies. On this basis, we identify some promising research questions and agendas for future studies on the politics of regulation.

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Section: The Regulatory Politics That Principals Makementioning

confidence: 78%

Politicians, regulators, and regulatory governance: The neglected sides of the story

Benoît

2021

Regulation & Governance

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“…A rather large discussion revolves around the distributive consequences of policy choices made by the president and Congress, and it is particularly concerned with how these decisions are driven by tactical, partisan, or even individual concerns (Berry and Fowler 2016;Kriner and Reeves 2015). In practice, much of the spending in, for example, battleground states is channeled through federal agencies (Berry and Gersen 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They identify political appointees as key players. Berry and Gersen (2017) describe how variation in agency insulation-and the influence of political appointees in particular-helps to explain spending decisions across federal agencies. With designs that allow more direct political control comes partisan responsiveness in agency spending decisions.…”

Section: Politicization and Favoritism In Procurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The scarcity of studies on politics and procurement in the United States opens up promising avenues for research on tactical spending, which is of great importance for both scholars and the general public. Moreover, while the literature on distributive politics sometimes draws attention to the role played by political appointees in distribution decisions and hints at politically motivated favoritism (Berry and Gersen 2017;Hudak 2014;Kriner and Reeves 2015), to what extent, if at all, agency design can hinder tactical spending is yet to be fully understood.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Partisan Procurement: Contracting with the United States Federal Government, 2003–2015

Dahlström

Fazekas

Lewis

2020

American J Political Sci

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The U.S. federal government spends huge sums buying goods and services from outside of the public sector. Given the sums involved, strategic government purchasing can have electoral consequences. In this article, we suggest that more politicized agencies show favoritism to businesses in key electoral constituencies and to firms connected to political parties. We evaluate these claims using new data on U.S. government contracts from 2003 to 2015. We find that executive departments, particularly more politicized department-wide offices, are the most likely to have contracts characterized by noncompetitive procedures and outcomes, indicating favoritism. Politically responsive agencies-but only those-give out more noncompetitive contracts in battleground states. We also observe greater turnover in firms receiving government contracts after a party change in the White House, but only in the more politicized agencies. We conclude that agency designs that limit appointee representation in procurement decisions reduce political favoritism.Verification Materials: The data and materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures, and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/4NEPI7. G overnments in developed countries like the United States spend over one-quarter of their budget buying goods and services from suppliers outside the public sector, with contracts typically set up between agencies and private firms (OECD 2017). The U.S. federal government spends $350 billion per year on procurement in the Department of Defense alone. This is greater than half the entire domestic discretionary budget in a given year, and it provides the president and his or her administration with a powerful political vehicle (Gitterman 2013). Although the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) prescribes open competition for government contracts, this article explains that there are ways for agencies to circumvent the spirit of the law, which opens up avenues for politically motivated favoritism in procurement. And, indeed, there are clear signs of noncompetitive procedures and outcomes, with about 35% of federal contracts showing such features (Brunjes 2020).Politically motivated favoritism exists in situations where the procurer deliberately sets competition aside for electoral reasons, to cultivate relationships with connected firms, or in other ways to allow the incentives of the party in power to influence the procurement process. The opportunities to engage in favoritism are shaped by federal law and vary across agency contexts. Many

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“…However, in a rush to gain substantive understanding of the subject and to quantify politicization, scholars have resorted to conceptual stretching (Sartori 1970). This lack of clear concept formation has resulted in overlapping, underspecified, and sometimes conflicting notions of political control and administrative responsiveness (Berry and Gersen 2017;Christensen and Laegried 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Politicization Conversation: A Call to Better Define and Measure the Concept

Limbocker¹,

Richardson²,

Selin³

2022

Pres Stud Q

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Across disciplines and contexts, scholars vary in their conception of politicization. This variation reveals a need for more consistent concept definition and measurement of the extent to which politics influence administration. We engage this need by providing a typology of politicization that includes consideration of the actions of elected officials, political appointees, and merit‐based administrators. We then assess dynamic differences across the typology in the United States using personnel records spanning four decades, measures of insulation derived from statutory language, and three surveys of senior federal executives. Our analysis provides a research agenda for scholars who seek to examine the politicization of the executive branch.

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Agency Spending and Political Control of the Bureacracy

Cited by 8 publications

References 26 publications

Politicians, regulators, and regulatory governance: The neglected sides of the story

Politicians, regulators, and regulatory governance: The neglected sides of the story

Partisan Procurement: Contracting with the United States Federal Government, 2003–2015

The Politicization Conversation: A Call to Better Define and Measure the Concept

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