Abstract
Extending transaction cost theories of agency design, the author develops a theory about why congressional coalitions vary the difficulty of influencing the policy decisions of bureaucratic agencies. He assesses the theory by examining the transaction costs that congressional coalitions imposed on actors seeking to influence agency decisions in landmark laws enacted by the U.S. Congress from 1947 to 1992. The findings stress the need to consider policy disagreement between congressional coalitions and both congressional committees and the president, as well as policy agreement between committees and the president, in understanding how difficult congressional coalitions make it to influence agencies' policy decisions.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
