| Making Policy, Making Law: An Interbranch Perspective Contributor(s): Miller, Mark C. (Editor), Barnes, Jeb (Editor) |
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ISBN: 1589010256 ISBN-13: 9781589010253 Publisher: Georgetown University Press OUR PRICE: $34.60 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2004 Annotation: The functioning of the U.S. government is a bit messier than Americans would like to think. The general understanding of policymaking has Congress making the laws, executive agencies implementing them, and the courts applying the laws as written--as long as those laws are constitutional. Making Policy, Making Law fundamentally challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that no dominant institution--or even a roughly consistent pattern of relationships--exists among the various players in the federal policymaking process. Instead, at different times and under various conditions, all branches play roles not only in making public policy, but in enforcing and legitimizing it as well. This is the first text that looks in depth at this complex interplay of all three branches. The common thread among these diverse patterns is an ongoing dialogue among roughly coequal actors in various branches and levels of government. Those interactions are driven by processes of conflict and persuasion distinctive to specific policy arenas as well as by the ideas, institutional realities, and interests of specific policy communities. Although complex, this fresh examination does not render the policymaking process incomprehensible; rather, it encourages scholars to look beyond the narrow study of individual institutions and reach across disciplinary boundaries to discover recurring patterns of interbranch dialogue that define (and refine) contemporary American policy. Making Policy, Making Law provides a combination of contemporary policy analysis, an interbranch perspective, and diverse methodological approaches that speak to a surprisingly overlooked gap in the literature dealing with the role of thecourts in the American policymaking process. It will undoubtedly have significant impact on scholarship about national lawmaking, national politics, and constitutional law. For scholars and students in government and law--as well as for concerned citizenry--this book unravels the complicated interplay of governmental agencies and provides an in-depth look at how the U.S. government functions in reality. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Political Science | American Government - General |
| Dewey: 320.609 |
| LCCN: 2004004387 |
| Series: American Governance and Public Policy |
| Physical Information: 0.57" H x 6.96" W x 9.92" (1.00 lbs) 244 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This volume proposes a new way of understanding the policymaking process in the United States by examining the complex interactions among the three branches of government, executive, legislative, and judicial. Collectively across the chapters a central theme emerges, that the U.S. Constitution has created a policymaking process characterized by ongoing interaction among competing institutions with overlapping responsibilities and different constituencies, one in which no branch plays a single static part. At different times and under various conditions, all governing institutions have a distinct role in making policy, as well as in enforcing and legitimizing it. This concept overthrows the classic theories of the separation of powers and of policymaking and implementation (specifically the principal-agent theory, in which Congress and the presidency are the principals who create laws, and the bureaucracy and the courts are the agents who implement the laws, if they are constitutional). The book opens by introducing the concept of adversarial legalism, which proposes that the American mindset of frequent legal challenges to legislation by political opponents and special interests creates a policymaking process different from and more complicated than other parliamentary democracies. The chapters then examine in depth the dynamics among the branches, primarily at the national level but also considering state and local policymaking. Originally conceived of as a textbook, because no book exists that looks at the interplay of all three branches, it should also have significant impact on scholarship about national lawmaking, national politics, and constitutional law. Intro., conclusion, and Dodd's review all give good summaries. |