Regulation and Public Interests

The Possibility of Good Regulatory Government

Steven P. Croley

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780691134642
  9780691130859
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400828142
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Administrative Law
• Index: Law

Not since the 1960s have U.S. politicians, Republican or Democrat, campaigned on platforms defending big government, much less the use of regulation to help solve social ills. And since the late 1970s, "deregulation" has become perhaps the most ubiquitous political catchword of all. This book takes on the critics of government regulation. Providing the first major alternative to conventional arguments grounded in public choice theory, it demonstrates that regulatory government can, and on important occasions does, advance general interests.


Unlike previous accounts, Regulation and Public Interests takes agencies' decision-making rules rather than legislative incentives as a central determinant of regulatory outcomes. Drawing from both political science and law, Steven Croley argues that such rules, together with agencies' larger decision-making environments, enhance agency autonomy. Agency personnel inclined to undertake regulatory initiatives that generate large but diffuse benefits (while imposing smaller but more concentrated costs) can use decision-making rules to develop socially beneficial regulations even over the objections of Congress and influential interest groups. This book thus provides a qualified defense of regulatory government. Its illustrative case studies include the development of tobacco rulemaking by the Food and Drug Administration, ozone and particulate matter rules by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service's "roadless" policy for national forests, and regulatory initiatives by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I THE CYNICAL VIEW OF REGULATORY GOVERNMENT, AND ITS ALTERNATIVES
• Chapter One The Basic Project
• Chapter Two The Cynical View of Regulation
• Chapter Three Is Regulatory Capture Inevitable?
• Chapter Four Alternative Visions of Regulatory Government
• PART II THE ADMINISTRATIVE REGULATORY STATE
• Chapter Five Opening the Black Box: Regulatory Decisionmaking in Legal Context
• Chapter Six Regulatory Government as Administrative Government
• Chapter Seven Participation in Administrative Decisionmaking
• Chapter Eight The AdministrativeߞProcess Approach Expanded: A More Developed Picture
• PART III PUBLIC INTERESTED REGULATION
• Chapter Nine The Environmental Protection Agency’s Ozone and Particulate Matter Rules
• Chapter Ten The Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Initiative
• Chapter Eleven The Forest Service’s Roadless Policy for National Forests
• Chapter Twelve Socially Beneficial Administrative Decisionmaking:Additional Evidence
• PART IV PUBLIC CHOICE AND ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS
• Chapter Thirteen The Public Choice Theory Revisited
• Chapter Fourteen The Promise of an AdministrativeߞProcess Orientation
• Chapter Fifteen Regulatory Rents, Regulatory Failures, and Other Objections
• Conclusion The Regulatory State and Social Welfare
• Notes