scholarly journals Handmaidens of the legislature? Understanding regulatory timing

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Simon F. Haeder ◽  
Susan Webb Yackee

Abstract When does legislation trigger regulation? The US Congress regularly passes laws that authorise government agencies to write legally binding regulations. Yet, when this occurs, agencies may take years to act – or, at times – may never act at all. We theorise that the breadth of the congressional statutory delegation drives the timing of agency policy production. In particular, when Congress expressly tells an agency to promulgate a rule, we expect agencies to do so quickly. Yet, when Congress provides greater policymaking discretion to agencies, we expect other factors – and especially, internal agency considerations – to drive regulatory timing. We use data from almost 350 statutes spanning four decades, which are then matched up with thousands of regulations, to assess the argument. Using innovative methods, we find support for our hypotheses. Overall, we produce a deeper understanding of the link between delegation and discretion: suggesting when it occurs, as well as, importantly, why.

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kitty Calavita

This article examines the structural contradictions underlying the difficulties of implementing the Chinese exclusion laws first enacted by the US Congress in 1882. I argue that these contradictions were grounded in the material and ideological conditions of the period, were reproduced in the unwieldy logic of the exclusion laws, and emerged as unresolvable enforcement dilemmas. Most important, the anti-Chinese racism on which the exclusion laws were based clashed with economic interests driven by the promise of lucrative trade with China. Using unpublished archival materials, the Congressional Record and Congressional reports, as well as annual reports of the enforcement bureaucracy, I show that exceptions to the exclusions for Chinese merchants were an attempt to reconcile this contradiction, and in turn generated formidable enforcement problems. Further, I argue that the impossibility of making sharp binary distinctions between merchants and 'coolies', and the humiliating procedures involved in the futile effort to do so, subjected the Immigration Bureau to criticism from exclusionists for their failure to detect fraud, and from the Chinese and their advocates in the business community for their harsh practices. The implications for sociolegal studies more generally are examined in the conclusion.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-310
Author(s):  
Marcus Miller

AbstractCould experiencing a health pandemic aid in understanding the nature of financial crisis? It might, for example, help to discriminate between different narratives that claim to do so. In this spirit, two influential accounts of the near-collapse of shadow banking in the US financial crisis of 2008 are analysed: one developed by Mark Gertler and Nobuhiro Kiyotaki and the other presented by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission of the US Congress. Using a common two-sector framework, key features of these contrasting accounts of the market for banking services are presented, along with their corresponding diagnoses of what precipitated financial crisis. To see what the experience of Covid might imply about their relative credibility, four aspects of the current pandemic are considered: how it began from a small biological shock; how it gets spread by contagion; the significance of externalities; and how it may end with a vaccine. But the reader is left to form his or her own judgement.


Author(s):  
Halyna Shchyhelska

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of Ukrainian independence. OnJanuary 22, 1918, the Ukrainian People’s Republic proclaimed its independence by adopting the IV Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada, although this significant event was «wiped out» from the public consciousness on the territory of Ukraine during the years of the Soviet totalitarian regime. At the same time, January 22 was a crucial event for the Ukrainian diaspora in the USA. This article examines how American Ukrainians interacted with the USA Government institutions regarding the celebration and recognition of the Ukrainian Independence day on January 22. The attention is focused on the activities of ethnic Ukrainians in the United States, directed at the organization of the special celebration of the Ukrainian Independence anniversaries in the US Congress and cities. Drawing from the diaspora press and Congressional Records, this article argues that many members of Congress participated in the observed celebration and expressed kind feelings to the Ukrainian people, recognised their fight for freedom, during the House of Representatives and Senate sessions. Several Congressmen submitted the resolutions in the US Congress urging the President of United States to designate January 22 as «Ukrainian lndependence Day». January 22 was proclaimed Ukrainian Day by the governors of fifteen States and mayors of many cities. Keywords: January 22, Ukrainian independence day, Ukrainian diaspora, USA, interaction, Congress


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dario Gianfranco Frisio ◽  
Vera Ventura

Background: RNA interference (RNAi) is an innovative technique for plant improvement based on naturally occurring mechanisms which show great potential because of their high specificity and possibility to be applied through innovative methods of topical application in plants. This specific innovation sector is worth analysing from the economic perspective given the great potentiality of RNAi-based plants and products to support modern agriculture in reaching the goals for the improvement of agri-food chains global sustainability. This paper aims to evaluate the global landscape of RNAi innovation by analysing patent data as indicators of innovation output. Methods: We revised all patents relating to RNAi in plants based on a dataset of roughly seven thousand patent families. The analysis classified inventions according to a set of variables able to characterise the dynamics of innovation (i.e. public/private ownership, type of plants involved, main traits) while the use of concentration indices provided insights into the evolution of this sector. Results: Results revealed that RNAi is a technique with promising future applications, able to provide solutions to a great variety of agricultural issues and principally developed by the US and Chinese applicants, whereas European innovation capacity in this field appears to be limited. Conclusion: The innovation landscape of plant breeding is rapidly evolving and RNAi technique is probably going to play a major role in this field.


2021 ◽  
pp. 263300242110244
Author(s):  
Alice M. Greenwald ◽  
Clifford Chanin ◽  
Henry Rousso ◽  
Michel Wieviorka ◽  
Mohamed-Ali Adraoui

How do societies and states represent the historical, moral, and political weight of the terrorist attacks they have had to face? Having suffered in recent years from numerous terrorist attacks on their soil originating from jihadist movements, and often led by actors who were also their own citizens, France and the United States have set up—or seek to do so—places of memory whose functions, conditions of creation, modes of operation, and nature of the messages sent may vary. Three of the main protagonists and initiators of two museum-memorial projects linked to terrorist attacks have agreed to deliver their visions of the role and of the political, social, and historical context in which these projects have emerged. Allowing to observe similarities and differences between the American and French approach, this interview sheds light on the place of memory and feeling in societies struck by tragic events and seeking to cure their ills through memory and commemoration.


Author(s):  
Matthew D. Thibeault

In this article, I explore John Philip Sousa’s historic resistance to music technology and his belief that sound recordings would negatively impact music education and musical amateurism. I review Sousa’s primary arguments from two 1906 essays and his testimony to the US Congress from the same year, based on the fundamental premise that machines themselves sing or perform, severing the connection between live listener and performer and thus rendering recordings a poor substitute for real music. Sousa coined the phrase “canned music,” and I track engagement with this phrase among the hundreds of newspapers and magazines focused on Sousa’s resistance. To better understand the construction of Sousa’s beliefs, I then review how his rich musical upbringing around the US Marine Band and the theaters of Washington DC lead to his conception of music as a dramatic ritual. And I examine the curious coda of Sousa’s life, during which he recanted his beliefs and conducted his band for radio, finding that in fact these experiences reinforced Sousa’s worries. The discussion considers how Sousa’s ideas can help us better to examine the contemporary shift to digital music by combining Sousa’s ideas with those of Sherry Turkle.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089719002110123
Author(s):  
Nicole Bradley ◽  
Yuman Lee ◽  
Muaz Sadeia

Introduction: The latest vancomycin therapeutic drug monitoring guidelines for serious MRSA infections have made a pivotal change in dosing, switching from targeting trough levels to AUC dosing. Because of these new recommendations, antimicrobial stewardship programs across the country are tasked with implementing AUC based dosing. Objectives: To assess plans for institutional adoption of vancomycin AUC dosing programs and perceptions of currently used programs in hospitals across the US. Methods: An electronic survey was distributed to members of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy IDprn Listserv and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists between May and June 2020 to assess current institutional vancomycin dosing. Institutional program use and multiple software user parameters were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: Two hundred two pharmacists responded to the survey with the majority practicing in institutions with 251-500 beds. Most respondents have yet to implement AUC dosing (142/202, 70.3%) with many of them planning to do so in the next year (81/142, 57.0%). Of those that already implemented AUC dosing programs, purchased Bayesian software (23/60, 38.3%) and homemade software (21/60, 35.0%) were the 2 methods most frequently utilized. Purchased Bayesian software users were more likely to recommend their software to other institutions and ranked user friendliness higher compared to non-purchased software. Conclusion: Most respondents have not made the switch to vancomycin AUC dosing, but there is a growing interest with many institutions looking to adopt a program within the next year.


1994 ◽  
Vol 23 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 38-42
Author(s):  
Ted Turner

While the US congress was debating whether to continue China's Most Favoured Nation status, and Clinton was going back on his election promises, CNN's boss in Hong Kong was appealing for a laissez-faire approach to human rights


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