The Administrative Presidency as Reactive Oversight: Implications for Positive and Normative Theory

Abstract

The fact that centralized executive oversight of agency policy making is primarily reactive reflects the motives and constraints that define the president's relationship with the domestic bureaucracy. Such a strategy allows for the allocation of limited resources to agency initiatives that are inconsistent with the president's agenda or that evoke conflict within the executive branch or the larger political system. This calls into question the descriptive model of presidential administration as proactive management by a unitary actor, as well as its prescriptive corollary that equates a strong executive with coordination across the bureaucracy. Reactive presidential oversight can produce a kind of ad hoc coordination that can be salutary, but its often pluralistic character can also undermine other important values in the administrative process.

Setting the Regulatory Agenda: Statutory Deadlines, Delay, and Responsiveness

“…Presidential oversight of rule development, which is often reactive to agency actions, affects the timing and promulgation of regulations (West ). Congressional majorities and presidents insulate implementation to protect policy gains from opposing presidents and future majorities (e.g., Lewis ; Wood and Bohte ).…”

Retracted: Setting the Regulatory Agenda: Statutory Deadlines and the Conditions for Compliance

“…Presidential oversight of agency rule development affects the timing and promulgation of regulations, which is often reactive to agency actions (West 2015). If agencies are insulated from the president, executives have fewer incentives to consult and compromise with the White House on the content of a rule, reducing the transaction costs of promulgation.…”

Toward the usable recognition of individual benefits and costs in regulatory analysis and governance

“…First, the legal/policy literature on how regulatory agencies can function under vague statutory language (or whether the legislature is at fault for actively or passively delegating lawmaking powers to the executive that it should reserve to itself; see Ginsburg & Menashi ) bears on whether agencies should be given more or less discretion over how to analyze and respond to the distributional consequences of their choices. Second, the literature about how the executive oversees his agents in the bureaucracy generally concludes that such oversight is “reactive” (and that often the executive learns of a controversial agency decision because it imposes concentrated harms on a vocal interest group); therefore, more formal and routine attention to distribution could allow for more proactive oversight (West ). Third, the literature on agency capture (see Section 4.1) raises concerns about a lack of transparency exacerbated by the overaggregation of costs and benefits (if an agency decision favors an interest that has vocally and publicly expressed its concerns, especially during public hearings, the result is often called “responsiveness,” rather than capture).…”