Many observers view the judiciary as the weakest branch of American government due to its inability to unilaterally create policies and enforce change in domestic politics without the action of Congress and the president. Perhaps for this reason, existing research has often overlooked how federal agencies might strategically anticipate the influence of courts in the policymaking process. This project examines the extent to which the prospect of judicial review shapes the behavior of federal agencies in the enforcement process. In particular, it considers: (1) how bureaucrats might alter their regulatory enforcement behavior in light of the ideological composition of relevant courts; and (2) the degree to which Congress considers the potential for judicial influence on federal agencies when delegating bureaucratic policy discretion.
This project constructs original data sets measuring regulatory enforcement behavior by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as well as congressional delegation of policy discretion to these various agencies. Previous studies largely rely on cross-sectional data and focus entirely on the behavior of a single agency. Similiarly, the limited attention to judicial influence on federal agencies does not enable previous scholars to offer a comprehensive account of interinstitutional politics in the bureaucratic policymaking process. This project will enhance scholarly understanding of judicial influence in the policymaking process by examining multiple bureaucratic agencies with sufficient data to conduct longitudinal analyses over a greater time span. Furthermore, by evaluating the potential role that courts play in the policymaking process, this project will contribute to the study of how interinstitutional politics shape oversight of agency behavior and bureaucratic decision making more generally.
