Deliberate Discretion?
Subtitle: The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: September 2, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780521520706
Subjects: Central government; Political economy; Political Science; General; Politics / Current Events; Separation of powers; Politics/International Relations; North America; Political planning; Political Science / General; Comparative government; Political Ideologies - Democracy; Bureaucracy; Law and politics
First sentence: Representative democracy is often defended on the grounds that regular elections are the best way to align the incentives of policymakers with the desires of citizens.
Description: "The laws that legislature adopt provide a crucial opportunity for elected politicians to define public policy. But the ways politicians use laws to shape policy vary considerably across polities. In some cases, legislatures adopt detailed and specific laws in an effort to micromanage policymaking processes. In others, they adopt general and vague laws that leave the executive and bureaucrats substantial discretion to fill in the policy details.

What explains these differences across political systems, and how do they matter?".

"The authors address these issues by developing and testing a comparative theory of how laws shape bureaucratic autonomy. Drawing on a range of evidence from advanced parliamentary democracies and the U.S. states, they argue that particular institutional forms - such as the nature of electoral laws, the structure of the legal system, and the professionalism of the legislature - have a systematic and predictable effect on how politicians use laws to shape the policymaking process."--BOOK JACKET.