Legislatures and the Administrative State: Political control, Bureaucratic Politics and Public Accountability

Résumé : The study of legislative-administrative relations developed alongside the emergence of modern democratic institutions, as explored in a wide range of academic literature. This chapter offers an introduction to this literature. Contrasting American and European developments in the field, the first section provides an overview of the evolution of these debates, from both normative and positive angles. A second section discusses the key findings of the positive approach, first by taking a principal’s perspective: how and why legislatures try to influence administrative behaviour. It then take’s the agent’s perspective: how and why bureaucratic agents respond. The chapter concludes by drawing some implications for future research on legislative-administrative relations.