With Strings Attached: Statutory Delegations of Authority to the Executive Branch

Taratoot, Cole D.; Nixon, David

doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02395.x

Cited by 4 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Furthermore, influence on OIGs to be more productive is amplified in periods of unified government. This finding runs counter to conventional wisdom (Taratoot & Nixon, 2011), which would suggest Congress would demand more monitory activities from OIGs during times of divided government.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 66%

“…Furthermore, research has shown that divided government, that is, when the president and Congress are of different parties, Congress takes steps to shore up their political control over executive branch agencies (Taratoot & Nixon, 2011). As such, one would expect that in times of divided government, Congress would place additional demands on OIGs as opposed to during times of unified government, in which they would be more sympathetic to the president and decrease their demands on OIGs.…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The De Facto Independence of Federal Offices of Inspector General

Kempf

Cabrera

2018

The American Review of Public Administration

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The question of whether executive agencies can be subject to the control of politically elected legislators has been answered affirmatively, but it remains an open question whether legislators can likewise design an agency to be able to resist such control and influence. This article examines whether the de jure elements established for the system of U.S. federal offices of inspectors general (OIGs) adequately guard their role as independent and objective monitors of the agencies they oversee, and are reflected in their de facto independence from political pressures in the OIGs’ environments, operationalized as changes in the majority party in Congress, the presidency, and executive leadership. This research tests the self-reported outputs of 54 federal OIGs over a 10-and-a-half-year period to see if there are correlations between differences in inspector general (IG) appointment processes, OIGs’ environmental changes, and fluctuations in OIG outputs. Furthermore, it examines whether these results vary depending on whether the OIGs are performing pre factum audits or post factum investigations. Analyses show that OIGs with IGs appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate are more productive than those appointed by agency heads. Furthermore, federal OIGs’ productivity varies depending on who is president and with the OIGs’ proximity to the president, although pre factum audits and post factum investigations do not demonstrate similar patterns. This article sheds light on issues of institutional design and suggests an implicit political nature of pre factum oversight. Implications for policy and practice in the area of government accountability are discussed.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 66%

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The De Facto Independence of Federal Offices of Inspector General

Kempf

Cabrera

2018

The American Review of Public Administration

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“…Cross-sectoral studies mainly cover regulatory agencies in the areas of: food safety, telecommunications, electricity, postal services, pharmaceuticals, financial markets, and general competition (Gilardi, 2002;Thatcher, 2002;Levi-Faur and Jordana, 2006;Maggetti, 2007;Mediano, 2018). There are also studies that use large databases to compare various agencies from numerous sectors, without clear distinction of agency type or activity (Taratoot and Nixon, 2011;van Thiel and Yesilkagit, 2011;Bach, 2014;;Bertelli, 2016;Overman and van Thiel, 2016;Bersch et al, 2017). In turn, cross-national studies mainly cover Western Europe (Gilardi, 2002;Thatcher, 2002;Maggetti, 2007;Bach, 2014;Font, 2015;Overman and van Thiel, 2016;Eckert, 2017).…”

Section: Autonomy Of Public Agenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the way these players influence autonomy is not yet clear. On the one hand, there are results showing that more veto players would lead to fewer autonomous agencies (Gilardi, 2002), and that agencies created under divided governments tend to be more limited by statutory controls and, therefore, less autonomous (Taratoot and Nixon, 2011). On the other hand, there are studies that indicate that the presence of many veto players would lead to greater de facto autonomy in public organizations (Maggetti, 2007;Mediano, 2018).…”

Section: Autonomy Of Public Agenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The autonomy of public organizations can be operationalized in several ways. There are studies that use surveys to ascertain managers' perception of autonomy (van Thiel and Yesilkagit, 2011;Bach, 2014;Bertelli, 2016;Zahra and Jadoon, 2016), and there are studies that measure autonomy through institutional aspects related to the statutes of the organizations analyzed (Gilardi, 2002;Thatcher, 2002;Maggetti, 2007;Taratoot and Nixon, 2011;Hanretty and Koop, 2012;Mediano, 2018).…”

Section: Measuring Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The autonomy of public defender's offices: a systematic comparison between Latin American countries

Buta

2021

IJPSM

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PurposeIn most Latin American countries, the provision of legal assistance to the vulnerable population is carried out by public defender's offices (PDOs), agencies composed of state-paid career lawyers. The aim of this paper is to explain the cross-country variation in regarding the autonomy levels of Latin American PDOs.Design/methodology/approachA scale to measure autonomy was built allowing access to the autonomy of sixteen different PDOs. Data were gathered through content analysis of the statutes that organize the PDOs and analyzed through qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).FindingsThe results demonstrate different levels of autonomy among Latin American PDOs. Furthermore, conditions related to institutional and social contexts, such as levels of income, human development, democracy, and the complexity of the political systems, presented sufficient relationships for high levels of autonomy.Research limitations/implicationsIt was not possible to interview representatives of the PDOs analyzed. This could help the interpretation of the legislation applied to PDOs, as well as the observation of regulations that may not have come to the knowledge of researchers. Thus, analyses were made according to what was observed in the legislation of each country. It is also noteworthy that this research covered only nationwide PDOs, not involving subnational PDOs. In addition, the data have only internal validity, and cannot be extrapolated to the population.Practical implicationsThe creation of a scale to measure the autonomy of public agencies stands out as an original comparative data set of PDOs covering a large amount of Latin American countries.Social implicationsThis study was able to characterize the institutional arrangements of sixteen national PDOs, allowing broad comparison between legal aid agencies for the vulnerable population in a region of the world that still suffers from high levels of poverty.Originality/valueThe article presents possible explanations on the variations of PDOs' level of autonomy, showing PDOs' idiosyncrasies, whose autonomy is influenced also by social context variables, in view of the nature of their mission. It should be noted that factors related to the social context are not widely considered by the literature on autonomy of public agencies.

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Systematically Reviewing American Law and Public Administration: A Call for Dialogue and Theory Building

Osorio

Nielsen

Christensen

2021

Perspectives on Public Management and Governance

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Many of the world’s most pressing issues lay at the intersection of law and public administration. However, many have long lamented the relatively weak and atomized state of law and public administration scholarship. In this article, we use bibliometric and content analyses to systematically assess the last 20 years of literature, exploring the extent to which law and public administration have developed as a coherent paradigm. In short, we provide a contemporary assessment of the past assertion that “public administration has largely abandoned or forgotten its roots in public law—in the Constitution, statutes, and case law.” While we conclude that little changed in the last two decades, we offer some insights on the theoretical integration of law and public administration identifying strengths, weaknesses, and future avenues to advance paradigm building. Many of these recommendations necessitate better cross- and inner-field integration of voices and ideas.

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With Strings Attached: Statutory Delegations of Authority to the Executive Branch

Cited by 4 publications

References 15 publications

The De Facto Independence of Federal Offices of Inspector General

The De Facto Independence of Federal Offices of Inspector General

The autonomy of public defender's offices: a systematic comparison between Latin American countries

Systematically Reviewing American Law and Public Administration: A Call for Dialogue and Theory Building

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