Divided Government and the Fragmentation of American Law
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6230130 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sean Farhang (University of California, Berkeley), Miranda Yaver (0000-0002-4971-224X, Columbia University) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 401-417 |
| Publication date | 2016-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ajps.12188 |
| OpenAlex | W1928563389 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 25 |
| References cited | 28 |
We investigate institutional explanations for Congress's choice to fragment statutory frameworks for policy implementation. We argue that divided party government, which fuels legislative‐executive conflict over control of the bureaucracy, motivates Congress to fragment implementation power as a strategy to enhance its control over implementation. We develop a novel measure of fragmentation in policy implementation, collect data on it over the period 1947–2008, and test hypotheses linking separation‐of‐powers structures to legislative design of fragmented implementation power. We find that divided party government is powerfully associated with fragmentation in policy implementation, and that this association contributed to the long‐run growth of fragmentation in the postwar United States. We further find that legislative coalitions are more likely to fragment implementation power in the face of greater uncertainty about remaining in the majority
Bureaucracy · Divided government · Economics · Fragmentation (computing · Government (linguistics · Law and economics · Legislature · Political science · Politics · Separation of powers · Statutory law · Computer Science · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Public Administration · Regulation and Compliance Studies
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| Unique citing works | 25 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,5 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 25 |