- [UNTITLED]
- Acknowledgments
- About the Contributors
- Introduction
- Formal Models of Legislatures
- The Sociology of Legislators and Legislatures
- Typologies and Classifications
- Roll-Call Analysis and the Study of Legislatures
- Words as Data: Content Analysis in Legislative Studies
- Debate and Deliberation in Legislatures
- Interviews and Surveys in Legislative Research
- The Experimental Study of Legislative Behaviour
- Candidate Selection: Implications and Challenges for Legislative Behaviour
- The Effect of Electoral Institutions on Legislative Behaviour
- Gender and Legislatures
- Roles in Legislatures
- Legislative Careers
- Procedure and Rules in Legislatures
- The Politics of Bicameralism
- Committees
- Political Parties and Legislators
- Party Discipline
- Legislative Party Switching
- Legislative Institutions and Coalition Government
- Institutional Foundations of Legislative Agenda-Setting
- LawMaking
- Legislatures and Public Finance
- Legislatures, Lobbying, and Interest Groups
- Legislatures and Foreign Policy
- Common Agency? Legislatures and Bureaucracies
- Political Behaviour in the European Parliament
- Sub-National Legislatures
- The Study of Legislatures in Latin America
- Legislatures in Central and Eastern Europe
- Authoritarian Legislatures
- Reluctant Democrats and Their Legislatures
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Abstract and Keywords
In all democracies, whether presidential or parliamentary, the chain of political delegation is a complex process involving a multitude of principals, many of which are frequently replaced. This presents common-agency problems for bureaucrats and politicians—that is, they must be answerable to many different principals. The fractured and temporally unstable nature of democratic leadership makes political oversight of bureaucracy a particularly problematic link in the process by which the government is controlled by citizens. Legislatures can mitigate the agency problems associated with delegation using one of four approaches: contract design, screening/selection, monitoring/reporting requirements, and institutional checks. Thischapter examines the common-agency problem and the legislative control of the bureaucracy. It begins with a review of the positive and normative literature on delegation and oversight. More specifically, it considers the normative debate on who should control the bureaucracy, as well as the positive debate on who actually controls the bureaucracy. It concludes by addressing research frontiers in the study of oversight.
Keywords: political delegation, principals, common agency, political oversight, bureaucracy, legislatures, contract design, screening/selection, monitoring/reporting requirements, institutional checks
Mathew D. McCubbins is the Provost Professor of Business, Law and Political Economy at the University of Southern California.
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- [UNTITLED]
- Acknowledgments
- About the Contributors
- Introduction
- Formal Models of Legislatures
- The Sociology of Legislators and Legislatures
- Typologies and Classifications
- Roll-Call Analysis and the Study of Legislatures
- Words as Data: Content Analysis in Legislative Studies
- Debate and Deliberation in Legislatures
- Interviews and Surveys in Legislative Research
- The Experimental Study of Legislative Behaviour
- Candidate Selection: Implications and Challenges for Legislative Behaviour
- The Effect of Electoral Institutions on Legislative Behaviour
- Gender and Legislatures
- Roles in Legislatures
- Legislative Careers
- Procedure and Rules in Legislatures
- The Politics of Bicameralism
- Committees
- Political Parties and Legislators
- Party Discipline
- Legislative Party Switching
- Legislative Institutions and Coalition Government
- Institutional Foundations of Legislative Agenda-Setting
- LawMaking
- Legislatures and Public Finance
- Legislatures, Lobbying, and Interest Groups
- Legislatures and Foreign Policy
- Common Agency? Legislatures and Bureaucracies
- Political Behaviour in the European Parliament
- Sub-National Legislatures
- The Study of Legislatures in Latin America
- Legislatures in Central and Eastern Europe
- Authoritarian Legislatures
- Reluctant Democrats and Their Legislatures
- Name Index
- Subject Index