The U.S. Congress and the Institutional Design of Agencies

Theories of agency design maintain that lawmakers impose requirements on how bureaucratic agencies make policy decisions, preventing those agencies from undermining lawmakers' political and policy goals. Empirical support for these theories is limited, however, by the difficulty of measuring critical variables hypothesized to influence the use of this tool of political control. For this study, I employed a methodology particularly well suited, but not previously employed, to study variance in the use of agency‐design provisions: interviews with congressional committee staff. Staffers' responses support several theories, cast doubt on one explanation, and point to nuances in other explanations of agency design.     

The law and the public's health: a study of infectious disease law in the United States

Law plays crucial roles in the field of public health, from defining the power and jurisdiction of health agencies, to influencing the social norms that shape individual behavior. Despite its importance, public health law has been neglected. Over a decade ago, the Institute of Medicine issued a report lamenting the state of public health administration, generally, and calling, in particular, for a revision of public health statutes. The Article examines the current state of public health law. To help create the conditions in which people can be healthy, public health law must reflect an understanding of how public health agencies work to promote health, as well as the political and social contexts in which these agencies operate. The authors first discuss three prevailing ways in which the determinants of health are conceptualized, and the political and social problems each model tends to create for public health efforts. The analysis then turns to the core functions of public health, emphasizing how law furthers public health work. The Article reports the results of a fifty-state survey of communicable disease control law, revealing that few states have systematically reformed their laws to reflect contemporary medical and legal developments. The Article concludes with specific guidelines for law reform.     

Scene investigation, identification, and victim examination following the accident of Galaxy 203: disaster preplanning does work

Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 crashed following takeoff from Reno-Cannon International Airport on 21 Jan. 1985. Sixty-eight persons on board the aircraft perished in the initial crash and resultant fire which followed. Two victims expired as a result of crash injuries within subsequent days and one passenger survived. A community disaster response plan was in place and had been practiced by local government agencies before this incident. The successes of this preplanned response, as well as methods of actual recovery, identification, and examination of the victims is presented.     

法律控制行政权力的主体路径

法律控制行政权力是现代民主政治的必然要求,但现有研究成果往往局限于关注如何监督,忽略了应当监督谁、应当由谁来监督这些重要问题。基于我国行政权的特性及我国的现有国情,所有实际行使行政权力的主体都应当是法律规制的对象,即国家、执政党、行政机关、授权组织和公务法人;同时,现有监督主体如权力机关、特定行政机关、司法机关要遵循权责一致原则切实履行法定监督职责,社会监督主体亦应创造性地发挥监督作用。     

行政权力的政治监督——以美国行政法为视角

探讨美国联邦政府不同部门对行政权力的政治制衡,主要包括议会、行政首长以及行政部门的自我监督。美国经验表明,政治监督是防止行政滥用权力的重要保障。事实上,有效的政治监督是行政法治的必要条件。     

Interspecies Violence and Crimes of Dissent: Communication Ethics and Legitimacy in Message Crimes Involving Wildlife

In this article, we consider the phenomenon of message crimes involving harm to wildlife from a sociological and criminological perspective. Using a case study of dissident Nordic hunters killing protected wolves to send a message to the state agencies responsible for their conservation, we engage philosophically with the question of wildlife victimhood and why interspecies violence is unjustifiable as a mode of political dissent. As an alternative to the species justice perspective in green criminology, we examine how the acts disrespect animals as moral subjects of public communication and frustrate dialogue regarding what is owed to them in terms of political justice.     

政府横向权力配置新论——从结构功能主义角度的分析

在＂结构功能主义＂权力分立观看来,政府的立法权、司法权和行政权分别是一种政治性、法律技术性和兼具政治性与行政技术性的权力;为了实现相应的政府职能,这些权力应当由相应的政治性的机关（立法机关）、法律技术性机关（司法机关）和兼具政治性与行政技术性的机关（行政机关）来行使;为了保证各政府机关能够＂称职＂地行使相应的权力,各政府机关的组成人员、运作规则应当具备不同于其他机关和人员的制度设计。尽管当今世界各国存在国家性质和政权体制的不同,但是三种权力的性质却是永恒不变、超越国家界限和超越意识形态的。我国当前权力机关（民意机关）和司法机关（法院）的行政化倾向不利于国家职能的有效实现。     

The determinants of health policy, a case study: regulating safety and health at the workplace in Sweden

This article analyzes and criticizes the " technocratic " view of occupational health and safety policies, which sees the values of the personnel in "post-industrial" regulatory agencies as the most important determinant of those policies. It takes an alternate position, which explains occupational health and safety policies as primarily resulting from the different degrees of political power of the two major classes (capital and labor), and from the set of influences exerted on the regulatory agencies by the instruments (e.g., parties, unions, trade organizations) of those classes. It shows how an analysis of the historical evolution of those classes in Sweden and their conflict in both civil and political societies explains Swedish occupational health and safety policies better than a mere analysis of the regulators' views. And it concludes that the occupational health and safety policies in Sweden are not identical to those in the U.S.--as the " technocratic " theorists assume--but rather offer more protection to the workers than U.S. policies do. This situation is a result of labor having more power in Sweden than it has in the U.S. The different class formations and class behavior in the two societies are compared, and the implications of this comparison for occupational health and safety policies are discussed.     

Agency Accountability Strategies After Liberalization: Universal Service in the United Kingdom, France, and Sweden

Liberalization of key network industries is often said to reduce accountability by undermining its traditional mechanisms. Liberalization, others say, promotes accountability by creating new channels and mechanisms. This article suggests that neither view is sufficiently nuanced. Accountability comes in many forms, and the question is less "how much" accountability there is, but what form it takes. And accountability will take different forms in relation to different issues, even within the same organization. Examining accountability in relation to the provision of universal service in electricity and telecommunications, this article demonstrates that in the regimes studied, agencies were generally accountable for providing universal service by deferring, to the maximum possible extent, to political actors or stakeholders. However, when faced with an expert technical question—in this case, determining the costs of the universal service—agencies stressed their professional judgment and transparency. This observation supports a wider hypothesis concerning the conditions under which a variety of agency accountability strategies may be adopted.     

Measuring organised crime-related harms: exploring five policing methods

Many law enforcement agencies around the world have adopted risk assessment methodologies to analyse organised crime. These assessments, which are intended to provide law enforcement management with rigourous analysis to enable rational and objective decision-making processes, are an integral part of intelligence-led policing. Despite the prevalence of these assessments, as the assessments and their methodologies are often tightly restricted within the law enforcement community, it is often unclear how law enforcement defines, analyses and makes decisions about organised crime. While the use of risk assessment methodology in policing to analyse organised crime is generally under-evaluated, critics point to serious methodological weaknesses. Another less-explored aspect in the scholarly literature is how law enforcement conceptualises and measures the impact of “harm” from organised crime and uses this analysis to inform priority-setting processes. This article explores how law enforcement assesses organised crime-related harm by examining five policing methods—one each from Australia and the Netherlands and three from the United Kingdom. The article finds that the methods have significant shortcomings: the main concepts are generally ill-defined and the operationalisation of these concepts is problematic. More importantly, the problems evident in the harm methods raise several critical questions, specifically whether measuring organised crime-related harms is empirically feasible and, if so, can be undertaken in a manner that meaningfully informs law enforcement’s decision-making and limits undue political interference.     

The German “Wutbürger”: How Justice Sensitivity Accounts for Individual Differences in Political Engagement

Perceived injustice can trigger strong emotional reactions and motivate political protest. Although there is vast empirical evidence for this chain of reactions, we know little about individual differences in how perceived injustice can motivate people to engage in political actions. In a survey study with 1,005 German participants, we investigated how justice sensitivity as a personality disposition accounts for individual differences in political engagement. Regression analyses revealed that justice sensitivity from an observer perspective promotes political engagement, whereas justice sensitivity from a victim perspective is not related to political engagement . In the concrete case of a political decision regarding the public transport project “Stuttgart 21” in Germany, our data indicated that perceived procedural injustice of the decision process and moral outrage mediated the relation of justice sensitivity from an observer perspective and political protest. The present findings are in line with research on the behavioral outcomes of justice sensitivity and contribute to the understanding of individual differences in political engagement and its underlying motivational processes.     

Priority-setting processes for medicines: the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand

The agencies involved in the assessment and prioritisation of medicines for public subsidy purposes in Australia, England and Wales, and New Zealand are compared in terms of their processes; ultimate decision-maker and political involvement in decisions; price-setting processes; decision criteria and inclusion of economic assessment of cost-effectiveness; provision for the rule of rescue and separate treatment of potentially life-saving medicines and cancer drugs; levels of access; extent of consumer participation in processes and decisions; and provision for appeal from decisions. All countries face the key challenge of expanding access to important new treatments, while maintaining cost-effectiveness as a key criterion for public funding and safeguarding the affordability and sustainability of their programs into the future. New Zealand's model may have led to a greater focus on cost-containment and overall affordability than those of the other two agencies. Despite controversial decisions that have led on occasion to disappointment and challenge, the Australian and New Zealand agencies have survived and appear to have managed to date to maintain public and political support. By contrast, the United Kingdom's National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical Excellence is facing major changes to its role that could see it become more of an advisory organisation.     

“We Don't Believe in Transitional Justice:” Peace and the Politics of Legal Ideas in Colombia

This article draws on law and society theories on the circulation of legal ideas to explain the instrumentalization of transitional justice in Colombia. Most scholarship explains transitional justice as a theoretical framework or as a set of instruments that helps redress mass violence. In contrast, this study reveals that the idea serves as a placeholder for different political actors to promote their respective interests. Drawing on over fifty interviews, the study suggests that the power of transitional justice lies in its malleability, which is both its strength and its weakness, as those with different political agendas can appropriate the idea in contradictory ways. The findings emphasize that understanding transitional justice requires a turn from abstract analyses that either take the idea for granted or try to define its meaning toward examining how people on the ground understand the idea, and how they translate those understandings into political action.     

Some Theoretical Problems of the Constitutional Structure of the Soviet State

The Soviet Constitution is the fundamental law stipulating the socio-economic and political system, defining the principles of organization and functioning of the state agencies, the legal position of social organizations and the legal status of citizens (their fundamental rights and duties), and proclaiming the basic tasks of the people and the trends in the development of society and the state. In other words, it reflects a half century of experience in building the society and state, the historical triumphs of the people in various areas of economic, political and cultural life, and it indicates the direction of further development.     

Protecting integrity at the local level: the role of anticorruption and public management networks

This article argues that anti-corruption agencies at the local-level have been successful in a way that can be evaluated and emulated. A related contention is that corruption control is most effective when the central public integrity agency is part of both a local anticorruption network and a local public management network. Quite reasonably, the international anti-corruption project has focused most time and energy on advocating and assessing efforts made to ensure public integrity at the national level. Baseline studies by scholars and supra-national integrity nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) identify the form of corruption control (if any) adopted by the central government. Key considerations in assessing the status of national anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) are the ones mentioned in the introduction to this special issue: political independence, scope of authority, investigatory powers, position in the national legal/political network, durability, and use of effectiveness measures. Similar taxonomies are deployed by OLAF, Transparency International, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and by scholars on corruption control.     

The politics of health care regulation: the case of the National Health Planning and Resources Development Act

This paper examines the political and bureautic dynamics of health regulation under the National Health Planning and Resources Development Act and, to a lesser extent, the Carter Cost Proposal now before Congress. A number of underlying issues that affect the day-to-day exercise of health planning are considered, including the contest between state and local and federal government for program control, jurisdictional conflict between state and local planning agencies, and the unsettled roles to be played by professional planners, consumers, and providers. When we assess regulatory policy in health, these complicating factors must be added to the long list of handicaps that already exist. One important finding is that local planning agencies have embraced the task of health regulation somewhat more fully than had generally been expected. A number of explanations for this are offered. In short, the controlling factors in health planning are political, not technical, and there is more occurring at the state and local levels than many had predicted, although any impact is not likely to be dramatic.     

中国土地执法摇摆现象及其解释

中国土地执法实践呈现“摇摆现象”,即有时执法有效,有时执法失灵。执法摇摆现象的发生,并非完全因为法律不完备或者土地执法部门能力有限,还在于中国集中体制下的“嵌入式执法”。在中国国家体系中,土地执法部门被嵌入在集中体制及其建构的中心工作中。在中心工作完成过程中,土地执法部门真正完成的并非其职能目标,而是集中体制目标。不同中心工作的建构,导致土地执法效果可能有效也可能失灵,呈现出摇摆不定的执法效果。集中体制本身的分化,即中央和各级地方政府目标重点的不同,也使得土地执法效果更不可预期。     

Work Rules: How International NGOs Build Law in War‐Torn Societies

Drawing on socio‐legal literature and fieldwork in South Sudan, this article argues that international aid groups operating in conflict settings create and impose a rules‐based order on the local people they hire and on the domestic organizations they fund. Civil society actors in these places experience law's soft power through their daily, tangible, and mundane contact with aid agencies. As employees they are subject to contracts and other rules of employment, work under management and finance teams, document routine activity, and abide by organizational constitutions. In analyzing how South Sudanese activists confront, understand, conform to, or resist these externally imposed legal techniques and workplace practices, this article decenters state institutions as sites for understanding law's power and exposes how aid organizations themselves become arenas of significant legal and political struggle in war‐torn societies.     

Toward a methodology for the comparative study of political corruption

Robust explanations of political corruption demand that research progresses beyond purely theoretical analyses and single case studies. In this article, we highlight problems of definition, operationalization and measurement of corruption that have restricted the number of truly comparative, empirical studies of the phenomenon. We suggest a few steps that might help researchers overcome methodological obstacles in their study of corruption. We introduce and evaluate one example of how the phenomenon might be comparatively operationalized and measured. While not beyond criticism, the corruption index we present will undoubtedly help light new avenues toward more comprehensive explanations of comparative political corruption. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Local law enforcement terrorism prevention efforts: A state level case study

Although law enforcement agencies across the nation have assumed part of the responsibility in the fight against terrorism, significant confusion exists as to the role of local law enforcement. While some agencies have taken steps towards terrorism prevention, little data has been collected on which agencies have taken the greatest steps, how those agencies have changed, and how other agencies should direct their activity. This case study of law enforcement census data from a single state considered variations in terrorism preparedness and predictors of preparedness. Agency size, presence of funding, and other variables significantly predict levels of terrorism preparedness. Important policy implications such as the distribution of funding and which agencies should be working towards terrorism preparedness are discussed.