Democracy and Executive Power: Policymaking Accountability in the US, the UK, Germany, and France

A defense of regulatory agencies’ efforts to combine public consultation with bureaucratic expertise to serve the interest of all citizens

“This exceptional exploration of how four advanced democracies pursue legitimacy in the bureaucratic implementation of regulatory law makes an invaluable contribution.”—Peter M. Shane, author of Madison’s Nightmare: How Executive Power Threatens American Democracy

The statutory delegation of rule-making authority to the executive has recently become a source of controversy. There are guiding models, but none, Susan Rose-Ackerman claims, is a good fit with the needs of regulating in the public interest. Using a cross-national comparison of public policy-making in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, she argues that public participation inside executive rule-making processes is necessary to preserve the legitimacy of regulatory policy-making.