Bureaucracy and Rulemaking

Max Weber recognized that bureaucracies were rational-legal authorities that assumed their legitimacy from legal order and law. Consequently, government bureaucracy can have a powerful effect on public administration. Can bureaucracy impact rulemaking? Accountability? How has bureaucratic decision-making impacted citizen participation?

Provide an explanation of how the organizational structure of bureaucracy impacts the rulemaking process. Provide two specific examples. Explain whether the rulemaking process encourages or hinders citizen participation and why. Cite the specific rule using Bluebook citation. The Bluebook citation should appear in-text, as well as in the reference list.

Support your response using the Learning Resources and other scholarly resources. View the list of the types of resources below.

Readings

• Kerwin, C. M., & Furlong, S. R. (2010). Rulemaking: How government agencies write law and make policy (4^th ed.). Washington, DC: CQ Press.
  • Chapter 1, “The Substance of Rules and the Reasons for Rulemaking”
  • Chapter 2, “The Process of Rulemaking”
  • Chapter 7, “Rulemaking: Theories and Reform Proposals”
• Harvard Law Review Association, et al. (Eds.). (2015). The Bluebook: A uniform system of citation(20^th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Author.
  • Rule 14
• Tausanovitch, C., & Warshaw, C. (2013). Measuring constituent policy preferences in Congress, state legislatures, and cities. Journal of Politics, 75(2), 330–342. doi:10.1017/S0022381613000042
• Terman, J. (2014). A state-level examination of bureaucratic policymaking: The internal organization of attention. The American Review of Public Administration, 45(6), 708–727. doi: 10.1177/0275074014529840
• West, W. F., & Raso, C. (2013). Who shapes the rulemaking agenda? Implications for bureaucratic responsiveness and bureaucratic control. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 23(3), 495–519. doi:10.1093/jopart/mus028

Websites

• National Archives. (n.d.). The Federal Register tutorial. Retrieved June 27, 2016, from http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/tutorial/online-pdf.html
• Office of the Federal Register. (n.d.). Retrieved June 27, 2016, from https://www.federalregister.gov/
• U.S. Government Publishing Office. (n.d.). Retrieved June 27, 2016, from https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=FR