To Prosecute or Not to Prosecute, That is the Question
Agency Litigation under the Influence of Appellate Courts
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6242017 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Quan Li (0000-0003-4734-7709, University of Central Florida, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 185-205 |
| Publication date | 2012-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0008-4239 • E-ISSN: 1744-9324 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0008423911000953 |
| OpenAlex | W2114884234 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 34 |
This article examines how institutional uncertainty within the US federal circuit courts influences regulatory agencies' enforcement choices of prosecution or non-prosecution. I argue that the circuits' random assignment of judges and cases creates institutional uncertainty in terms of variation in each circuit's possible rulings with respect to the bureaucracy's policy position. This, in turn, affects agencies' probability of prosecution because the high degree of uncertainty will discourage prosecution, given its cost. In other words, agencies reduce their exposure to judicial review by avoiding prosecution. I use ideological variance within the circuits as a proxy for measuring the circuit courts' internal group dynamics. Large ideological variance indicates high institutional uncertainty and consequently leads to fewer numbers of prosecutions by the bureaucracy. The empirical results based on the prosecution record of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice from 1950 to 1994 strongly support the theory.Résumé.L'article analyse comment l'imprévisibilité des décisions judiciaires au niveau des cours d'appel fédérales de circuit influence les décisions par les agences publiques de poursuivre les contrevenants à la règlementation. Je montre que l'attribution des juges et des causes par loterie crée de l'incertitude quant à l'issue des poursuites. L'incertitude réduit la probabilité que les agences publiques entament des poursuites judiciaires étant donné le coût élevé de celles-ci. En d'autres termes, les agences publiques atténuent l'implémentation de la règlementation par crainte de perdre devant des tribunaux imprévisibles. J'utilise une mesure de variance idéologique pour quantifier la dynamique de groupe à l'intérieur des circuits judiciaires. Une grande variance idéologique signifie un résultat incertain et mène à un nombre réduit de poursuites initiées par les agences publiques. Les données empiriques, provenant des registres de la Division Anti-trust du Ministère de la Justice des États-Unis pour la période s'étendant de 1950 à 1994, soutiennent fortement la théorie
Agency (philosophy · Bureaucracy · Enforcement · Ideology · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Legal and Constitutional Studies
Spatial Models of Parliamentary Voting
The Roosevelt Court
Institutional Dynamics on the U.S. Court of Appeals
The Judicial Mind Revisited
The Political Economy of Prosecution
Information and Judicial Review
Setting a Judicial Agenda
The Judicial Mind
Decision to Prosecute
The Roosevelt Court
Bureaucratic Dynamics
Picking Federal Judges
Do Political Preferences Change? A Longitudinal Study of U.S. Supreme Court Justices
Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999
The Politics of U.S. Antitrust Regulation
Comparing Attitudinal and Strategic Accounts of Dissenting Behavior on the U.S. Courts of Appeals
Ideological Patterns in the Justices' Voting in the Burger Court's Business Cases
The Politics of Investigations and Regulatory Enforcement by Independent Agents and Cabinet Appointees
Regional Court Influence Over Bureaucratic Policymaking
Fluidity on the Supreme Court
Fluidity on the United States Supreme Court
Bureaucratic Decisions and the Composition of the Lower Courts
Presidential Control versus Bureaucratic Power
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |