Table Of ContentDeliberate Discretion?
The laws that legislatures 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.
John D. Huber is Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia
University. He has published numerous articles on the comparative study of
political institutions and is author of Rationalizing Parliament: Legislative
Institutions and Party Politics in France (Cambridge University Press).
Charles R. Shipan is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University
of Iowa. He has published numerous articles on political institutions and public
policy and is the author of Designing Judicial Review: Interest Groups, Congress,
and Communications Policy. Professors Huber and Shipan were both Robert
Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy at the University of Michigan.
Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics
General Editor
Margaret Levi University of Washington, Seattle
Assistant General Editor
Stephen Hanson University of Washington, Seattle
Associate Editors
Robert H. Bates Harvard University
Peter Hall Harvard University
Peter Lange Duke University
Helen Milner Columbia University
Frances Rosenbluth Yale University
Susan Stokes University of Chicago
Sidney Tarrow Cornell University
Other Books in the Series
Stefano Bartolini, The Political Mobilization of the European Left,
1860-1980: The Class Cleavage
Mark Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet
State
Nancy Bermeo, ed., Unemployment in the New Europe
Carles Boix, Political Parties, Growth and Equality: Conservative and Social
Democratic Economic Strategies in the World Economy
Catherine Boone, Merchant Capital and the Roots of State Power in
Senegal, 1930-1985
Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in
Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective
Valerie Bunce, Leaving Socialism and Leaving the State: The End of
Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia
Ruth Berins Collier, Paths Toward Democracy: The Working Class and
Elites in Western Europe and South America
Donatella della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State
List continues on page following the Index.
Deliberate Discretion?
THE INSTITUTIONAL
FOUNDATIONS OF
BUREAUCRATIC
AUTONOMY
JOHN D. HUBER
Columbia University
CHARLES R. SHIPAN
University of Iowa
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521520706
© John D. Huber and Charles R. Shipan 2002
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2002
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
Huber, John D.
Deliberate discretion?: The Institutional foundations of bureaucratic autonomy
John D. Huber, Charles R. Shipan.
p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in comparative politics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-81744-7 (hardback) - ISBN 0-521-52070-3 (pbk.)
1. Separation of powers. 2. Political planning. 3. Bureaucracy. 4. Law and
politics. 5. Comparative government. I. Shipan, Charles R., 1961- II. Title.
III. Series.
JF229 .H833 2002
32O'.6-dc21
2002016560
ISBN 978-0-521-81744-8 Hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-52070-6 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in
this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel
timetables, and other factual information given in this work are correct at
the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee
the accuracy of such information thereafter.
For our mothers, Maryann Stewart and Betty Shipan
Contents
List of Tables page xi
List of Figures xii
Preface xiii
1 LAWS, BUREAUCRATIC AUTONOMY, AND THE
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DELEGATION 1
2 RATIONAL DELEGATION OR HELPLESS
ABDICATION? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
BUREAUCRATS AND POLITICIANS 17
3 STATUTES AS BLUEPRINTS FOR POLICYMAKING 44
4 A COMPARATIVE THEORY OF LEGISLATION,
DISCRETION, AND THE POLICYMAKING
PROCESS 78
5 LEGISLATION, AGENCY POLICYMAKING,
AND MEDIC AID IN MICHIGAN 109
6 THE DESIGN OF LAWS ACROSS SEPARATION
OF POWERS SYSTEMS 139
7 THE DESIGN OF LAWS ACROSS
PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEMS 171
8 LAWS, INSTITUTIONS, AND POLICYMAKING
PROCESSES 210
APPENDIX A MMC LAWS USED IN CHAPTER 3 231
APPENDIX B POLICY CATEGORIES USED FOR MMC
LAWS IN CHAPTER 3 233
Contents
APPENDIX C PROCEDURAL CATEGORIES USED
FOR MMC LAWS IN CHAPTER 3 238
APPENDIX D THE FORMAL MODEL OF DISCRETION 242
References 259
Author Index 215
Subject Index 279
