Publication Title
Political Science Research and Methods
Volume
12
Page
652
Year
2024
Abstract
Despite a renewed interest in the health of the US administrative state, the absence of meaningful time-series measures of bureaucratic capacity hinders the testing of core theories of bureaucratic and executive politics. Using over 190 million personnel records, I estimate 5590 yearly policymaking-capacity scores for 261 unique agencies from 1998 to 2021. These measures provide an invaluable tool as either an independent or dependent variable in studies of administrative policymaking. To illustrate the value of these measures, I test longstanding theories about the relationship between bureaucratic autonomy and capacity. In contrast with emerging survey research, this study demonstrates that agencies with higher levels of structural independence have higher levels of policymaking capacity.
Recommended Citation
Nicholas Bednar, Bureaucratic Autonomy and the Policymaking Capacity of United States Agencies, 1998-2021, 12 Pol. Sci. Res. & Methods 652 (2024), available at https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/faculty_articles/1142.
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