Regulation Growth and Bureaucratic Politics in the United States

Abstract

Diverse public administration and governance studies have argued that leviathan governments are no longer capable of efficient administration and that new governing structures should be substituted for traditional government regulations. Nevertheless, a large regulatory structure remains intact in the United States. This paper explores why traditional government regulation has persisted even in the era of new governance. Several regression tests indicate that bureaucratic attempts to secure the survival of agencies rather than administrative effectiveness determine the extent of regulation.