Political Uncertainty and Administrative Procedures

Abstract

Free elections are central to the institutional structure of democratic governments. As Hamilton noted in the Federalist Papers, elections create "an immediate dependence on, an intimate sympathy with, the people " (Hamilton, Jay and Madison 1966: 165). But although elections establish an ongoing connection between representatives and citizens, their impact on policy implementation is less clear. Regular elections create uncertainty about who will hold office and for how long. They therefore introduce an additional set of considerations for those who design the structure of government agencies beyond simple organizational effectiveness. In this chapter, we explore the relationship between electoral uncertainty and the adoption of a particularly important aspect of agency structure: the administrative procedures public officials require government agencies to follow when agencies issue policies. There are two literatures that address the issue of why public organizations are structured in particular ways. The first addresses the problem of how elected officials can use structure to control agencies. A number of scholars have shown that organizational design, administrative procedures, and other aspects of organization structure can provide elected officials with a means of overcoming agency problems. According to this scholarship, structural choices are the product of a struggle between independent-minded bureaucrats and their political fathers

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