Creating the Administrative Constitution

The Lost One Hundred Years of American Administrative Law

Bibliographic Data

ID5703132
AuthorsJ Rockwell, Stephen J Rockwell (St. Joseph's University New York, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume100
Issue2
Pages480-482
Publication date2013-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of American History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jahist/jat231
OpenAlexW2041667354
LanguageEN
Citations received10

Jerry L. Mashaw's excellent new book outlines the details of federal administrative law and practice in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with careful attention to well-known and lesser-known case studies. It is a significant contribution, adding to a wave of recent scholarship that redefines our understanding of American political development by highlighting the complicated and robust nature of federal governance and administration in the nation's first century. Mashaw's book should help put to rest, finally, the myth of small government and primitive bureaucracy that for too long has hampered our understanding of American political and administrative development. Mashaw's main focus is on what he calls “the administrative Constitution,” by which he means the very real parts of American governance that were at work in the nation's first century—notwithstanding the “hole” in the Constitution that leaves unstated any significant discussion of administration and bureaucracy (p. 10). This hole, of course, has led to a long history of academic works and public policy discussions that view administration skeptically. Traditional scholarship and received wisdom usually see a twentieth-century administrative state replacing a small, nineteenth-century government characterized by self-executing laws, tight congressional oversight, and a few clerklike bureaucrats implementing simple and popular policies. At the extreme, some scholars, politicians, and pundits view administration—particularly rule-making, adjudicatory functions, and the exercise of administrative discretion—as unconstitutional and democratically unaccountable

Administration (probate law · Administrative discretion · Administrative law · Bureaucracy · Constitution · Corporate governance · Discretion · Economics · Government (linguistics · Management · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Separation of powers · Sociology · State (computer science · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Public Administration

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub