Reexamining Rulemaking in an Era of Internet-Enabled Participation

Abstract

Does the platform of rulemaking deliberation change the cast of characters participating in rulemaking exercises? Does an online environment affect what commenters say in their public comments? We assess whether the well-studied typology of rulemaking authored by William Gormley, almost 30 years ago, continues to predict who comes to the regulatory game and what they do on the field when that game is played online. Assessing five rulemaking exercised with over 100,000 comments submitted through regulations.gov during 2015 and 2016, we evaluate whether the typology of salience and complexity accurately forecasts the regulars and irregulars to the rulemaking game and whether the behavior of those irregulars continues to be unpredictable, but descriptively interesting. We find that participation content is altered by external groups’ efforts to manufacture salience of rulemaking actions.