Rachel Potter’s new book Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy is an absolute must-read for those interested in agency rulemaking and in administrative law and regulatory practice more generally. As the title suggests, the book explores empirically and theoretically how agency officials — both career civil servants and political appointees — leverage procedural […]
In Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy, Rachel Potter examines agency strategies for coping with presidential, congressional, and judicial review of their proposed rules. Scholars have long thought that agencies substantively moderate their rules to anticipate concerns likely to be raised in the course of the political process and subsequent litigation. Prof. Potter […]
It is both humbling and daunting to have your book reviewed by so many eminent scholars. I am deeply grateful to Chris Walker and the JREG crew for hosting this symposium, and especially to Bridget Dooling for organizing it. When I first began writing Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy, my hope was […]
The question of how political actors can overcome the principal-agent problem and “control” bureaucratic decisions has long fascinated political scientists. In 1987, Matthew McCubbins, Roger Noll, and Barry Weingast (often referred to as “McNollgast”) put forth an argument regarding the use of procedures by legislatures to constrain bureaucratic behavior. They maintained that by requiring agencies […]
Rachel Potter’s new book, Bending the Rules, offers an intriguing new look into how agencies strategically use procedural discretion in rulemaking to achieve a desired outcome in the face of opposition. The tools agencies have to engage in this “procedural politicking” (as Potter calls it) arise within the “white space” that is created by the […]
The administrative state exercises power — too much power in the view of many. But what kind of power and in what forms? Rachel Potter’s new book, Bending the Rules, provides an occasion to reflect on these questions. The portrait she presents is that of strategic bureaucrats. These bureaucrats, civil servants and appointees alike, know […]
Regulatory scholars have traditionally viewed the three primary actors in the regulatory process – political overseers, regulatory agencies, and regulated entities – as operating in a set of nested principal-agent relationships. In the first, the overseer, which might be Congress, the president, or the courts, functions as the principal, and the regulator is the agent. […]
“Procedures are politics.” P. 201. Rachel Potter’s book, Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy, examines agencies’ choices in structuring their rulemaking processes. One might assume that each agency follows a consistent procedure across all its rulemakings, but Prof. Potter suggests otherwise. For instance, comment periods often vary greatly, p. 119, as do choices […]
This week, we’re hosting a web symposium on Dr. Rachel A. Potter’s new book, Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy (University of Chicago Press). Dr. Potter is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. Prior to her academic career, she worked for the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in […]