Administrative State

Extracted Attributes

• Definition

  The power held by government agencies to create, adjudicate, and enforce their own laws.

• Composition

  Comprises executive branch agencies at local, state, and federal levels, staffed by unelected officials.

• Origin of Idea

  A fundamental aim of American Progressivism, seeking to separate politics and administration based on expertise rather than popular consent.

• Fields of Study

  Political science, constitutional law, public administration.

• Historical Context

  Relatively unknown in representative democracies before the end of the 1800s; its sudden rise generated considerable scholarship.

• Primary Target for Reform

  Yes, following Donald Trump's 2024 election victory.

• Proposed Reform Strategies

  Declassification efforts, strengthening the Freedom of Information Act, and leveraging the Supreme Court's reversal of the Chevron Doctrine.

• Characterization by All-In Podcast hosts

  An unconstitutional 'fourth branch of government' and bureaucracy.

Timeline

• Woodrow Wilson wrote an unpublished essay titled 'The Art of Governing', his first sustained work on administration. (Source: Web Search)

  1885-11-XX

• Woodrow Wilson wrote his seminal essay 'The Study of Administration', explicitly making the case for separating politics and administration and freeing administration from constitutional law in the U.S. (Source: Web Search)

  1886-XX-XX

• The 'Revolution of 1937' marked a post-New Deal conception of the national government that constitutionalized the administrative state without formal Article V amendment. (Source: Web Search)

  1937-XX-XX

• Ronald Reagan's Executive Order 12291 applied to existing and new rules, directing agencies to review regulations. (Source: Web Search)

  1981-02-17

• Bill Clinton's Executive Order 12866 directed agencies to periodically review existing significant regulations. (Source: Web Search)

  1993-09-30

• Barack Obama's Executive Order 13563 directed agencies to promote retrospective analysis of rules. (Source: Web Search)

  2011-01-18

• Donald Trump's election victory brings a focus on an agenda of ambitious government reform, primarily targeting the administrative state. (Source: Related Documents)

  2024-XX-XX

Administrative state

The administrative state is a term used to describe the power that some government agencies have to write, judge, and enforce their own laws. Since it pertains to the structure and function of government, it is a frequent topic in political science, constitutional law, and public administration. The phenomenon was relatively unknown in representative democracies before the end of the 1800s. Its sudden rise has generated considerable scholarship, writing, and study to understand its causes and effects, and to square it with previous notions of law and governance.

Web Search Results

• Administrative state - Wikipedia

  The administrative state is a term used to describe the power that some government agencies have to write, judge, and enforce their own laws. The administrative state is created when legislative (law-making) bodies, like the U.S. Congress or the U.K. Parliament, delegate their lawmaking powers to administrative or private entities.[8] This is the case in the United States, where almost all administrative agencies are controlled by the executive. U.S. states have separate sovereignty with independent legislatures that can create agencies with the power to write law, decide cases, and enforce laws through their own police.

• Milestones in the Evolution of the Administrative State

  Reagan’s E.O. 12291 applied to existing as well as new rules, and Clinton’s E.O. 12866 directed each agency to “periodically review its existing significant regulations to determine whether any such regulations should be modified or eliminated so as to make the agency’s regulatory program more effective in achieving the regulatory objectives, less burdensome, or in greater alignment with the President’s priorities and the principles set forth in this Executive order.” Obama’s E.O. 13563 directed agencies to “consider how best to promote retrospective analysis of rules that may be outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them in accordance with what has been learned.”

• The Birth of the Administrative State: Where It Came From and What ...

  The idea of separating politics and administration--of grounding a significant portion of government not on the basis of popular consent but on expertise--was a fundamental aim of American Progressivism and explains the Progressives' fierce assault on the Founders' separation-of-powers constitutionalism. Wilson's first sustained work on administration came right at this time in an unpublished essay written in November 1885, titled "The Art of Governing." This work led to the writing, the following year, of Wilson's seminal essay, "The Study of Administration," where the case for separating politics and administration and for freeing administration from the confines of constitutional law is made explicitly for the first time in the United States.

• Administrative state - Ballotpedia

  The administrative state comprises executive branch agencies at the local, state, and federal levels, staffed by unelected officials. These agencies have the

• [PDF] The Rise and Rise of the Administrative State

  The post-New Deal conception of the national government has not changed one iota, nor even been a serious subject of discus-sion, since the Revolution of 1937.7 Part I of this Article sketches, in purely descriptive fashion, some of the most important ways in which the modern administrative state, without serious opposition, contravenes the Constitution's design. The Constitution contains aTaxing Clause, 2[...]eaning of the relevant text.' 0 'A third option, pursued at length by Bruce Ackerman, is to argue that the Constitution has been validly amended, through means other than the formal process of Article V, in a fashion that constitution-alizes the administrative state.