The Federal Design Dilemma
Congress and Intergovernmental Delegation, by Pamela J. Clouser McCann
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10933719 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Philip Rocco (0000-0001-5971-7039, Marquette University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | e13-e13 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Publius The Journal of Federalism (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0048-5950 • E-ISSN: 1747-7107 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/publius/pjx051 |
| OpenAlex | W2746271066 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
Federalism—perhaps to no one’s surprise—has been at the center of ongoing attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). During both the House and Senate debate over the legislation, Republicans repeatedly sold the repeal bill in part by using what is by now a stock phrase: “returning power to the states.” Yet on closer inspection, this choice of words was an odd one. Not only does the ACA give states a primary role in implementing new individual-market insurance exchanges, many of the most important functions of insurance market regulation were both developed in collaboration with state insurance commissioners and implemented by the states. In what sense, then, could Republicans credibly promise to “return power?” And why would they make delegation to the states a selling point of the legislation? In this superb book, Pamela J. Clouser McCann attempts to distill the essence of such decisions, which concern the delegation of authority to states and the national executive branch. While formal-theoretical studies of legislative delegation to the bureaucracy have blossomed since the 1990s, principal agent models of delegation have virtually ignored the significant role that state governments play as sites of authority in American government. In this sense, McCann’s book represents a significant departure from the status quo ante. While several prior studies analyze patterns of intergovernmental delegation, The Federal Design Dilemma is the first to motivate such empirical analysis with a sophisticated formal-theoretical account of how federalism shapes the process of legislative bargaining (Krause and Bowman 2005; Nicholson-Crotty 2008; Chatfield and Rocco 2013).
Delegation · Dilemma · Economics · Federalism · Federalist · Law and economics · Legislation · Legislature · Political science · Politics · Repeal · State (computer science) · Veto · Educational Research and Analysis · Educational, Social, and Political Issues · Law · Public Administration
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |