Modelling the Relationship Between Independence and Accountability of Regulatory Agencies

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The literature on regulatory agencies (RAs) thus far has suffered from an excess of fragmentation and lack of a common theoretical perspective. A significant contribution to the study of bureaucratic agencies was made in the 1980s by several influential US scholars, usually labelled ‘theorists of congressional dominance’ (see, for instance, Fiorina and Noll 1978; Fiorina 1982, 1986; Weingast and Moran 1983; McCubbins and Schwartz 1984; McCubbins et al. 1987; Calvert et al. 1989). These studies were published in reaction to the widely accepted argument that bureaucracy in the US had grown beyond any reasonable limit, and that it was impossible for Congress to control it. These authors argued that what at first sight looked like a lack of control over bureaucracy was in fact a system by which Congress managed to hold the agencies accountable, using legislative provisions, budget control, hearings and direct interventions in order to steer the agencies. This branch of the literature has provided useful contributions to the study of bureaucracy in general, and of agencies in particular, with a major focus on accountability — that is, on how legislators can achieve maximum control from the least supervising effort.