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Deliberate Discretion?: The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)

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Deliberate Discretion?: The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) is a fascinating look into how and why politicians delegate authority to bureaucrats. Huber and Shipan try to move beyond the axiomatic theory that politicians defer to bureaucrats' technical expertise to provide a broader theory of bureaucracy. The consider four factors that explain the amount of discretion legislators grant bureaucrats: 1) the amount of conflict between politicians and bureaucrats; 2) legislators' capacity to write detailed statutes; 3) the bargaining environment, particularly the number of veto players and bicameral legislature; and 4) expectations regarding nonstatutory controls over the bureaucracy, such as courts. The authors try to conduct a cross-national test and compare presidential and parliamentary systems. They use the word count of statutes as a proxy for discretion, with more words indicating less discretion granted to bureaucrats. Overall, they generate interesting results and provide much for future researchers to ponder.