Formal Procedures, Informal Processes, Accountability, and Responsiveness in Bureaucratic Policy Making: An Institutional Policy Analysis

Published date01 February 2004
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2004.00347.x
Date01 February 2004
AuthorWilliam F. West
66 Public Administration Review January/February 2004, Vol. 64, No. 1
William F. West
Texas A&M University
Formal Procedures, Informal Processes,
Accountability, and Responsiveness in Bureaucratic
Policy Making: An Institutional Policy Analysis
This study examines the role of public notice and comment in the development of 42 rules. These
procedures can provide useful information to policy makers about the preferences of those who
stand to be affected by agency actions. More importantly, they serve as cues for the accommoda-
tion of interests and the resolution of conflict through processes that are grounded in agencies
accountability to political officials. Yet, an examination of the interrelationship between formal,
procedural constraints and the informal processes surrounding them reveals that the effects of
notice and comment in promoting bureaucratic responsiveness are limited in ways that have re-
ceived little systematic analysis. A consideration of the tension between the instrumental goal of
procedural accountability and the political tasks that often dominate bureaucratic policy making
suggests that it is desirable to return to the original use of notice and comment as a device for
exposing agencies to the views of affected interests.
Each year, federal agencies promulgate roughly 2,000
rules that constrain economic behavior or establish crite-
ria for the distribution of public resources. Many of these
legally binding policies are issued pursuant to open-ended
mandates that require bureaucrats to weigh competing in-
terests. The importance of administrative rules notwith-
standing, scholars have given little systematic attention
to external influences on the rulemaking process. This
despite the fact that accountability and responsiveness are
central to the evaluation of bureaucracys role in Ameri-
can government.
Scholars neglect of rulemaking is underscored by its
unique institutional character, which limits comparisons
with forms of administrative output that have been stud-
ied extensively. Bureaucratic responsiveness in the exer-
cise of executive discretion to inspect or prosecute is a di-
rect or indirect function of agencies political accountability
to the elected officials who appoint their top managers and
establish their budgets and legal mandates (Moe 1982,
1985; Weingast and Moran 1983; Wood 1988, 1990; Hedge,
Menzel, and Williams 1988). In agencies exercise of leg-
islative discretion, however, the influence of politicians and
their constituents is intertwined with a judicially enforced
system of procedural accountability that requires admin-
istrators to solicit and address public comments on the mer-
its of individual policy decisions.
This article examines the role of procedural account-
ability in structuring the relationship between agencies and
their environments. An analysis of 42 rules indicates that
public comment occasionally promotes its ostensible goal
of identifying interests or policy effects that agencies would
not have considered otherwise. A more important function
of rulemaking procedures is to provide a cue for the ac-
commodation of interests through processes that are
grounded in political accountability. In this latter regard,
the studys findings help to refine the theory that notice
and comment requirements serve as fire alarms that fa-
cilitate elected officials efforts to ensure that bureaucracy
is responsive to their constituents.
If notice and comment requirements promote respon-
siveness in important ways, a consideration of the rela-
Bill West is a professor in the George Bush School of Government and Public
Service. He currently serves as the director of the master of public service and
administration program. Most of his research has focused on institutional
controls over the bureaucracy, including administrative procedures and ex-
ecutive and legislative oversight. E-mail: wwest@bushschool.tamu.edu.

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