Is the Failed Pandemic Response a Symptom of a Diseased Administrative State?

David E. Lewis is the Rebecca Webb Wilson University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Law (by courtesy) at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design (2003) and The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance (2008).

The Value of Design Patterns in Designing Teaching in Online Settings

This paper presents an overview of the development of a pattern language for designing online learning and teaching. The aim of these patterns is to facilitate teachers in designing their online teaching environment using a scaffolded methodology that maintains and confirms their individual design agency. Design patterns capture expert knowledge in ways that can be reused to solve problems but never in the same way twice. Here, the authors provide an overview of the patterns, their interrelationship, and reflect on the value of design pattern and their use, highlighting how they can be deployed to enhance online teaching in an iterative design cycle approach.

The National Environmental Policy Act and the Battle for Control of Environmental Policy

In 1969, a public debate between President Nixon and Congress took place during the legislative passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and centered on two very different and competing conceptions of how presidential advice should be organized in the Executive Office of the President. It focused on the proposed establishment of the Council on Environmental Quality. The outcome of the ensuing battle represented a complete victory for congressional interests against the expressed wishes of the president. The nature of the debate has been overlooked in the literature on the presidency, but it highlights fundamental issues about agency design and presidential control of the institutional presidency. It also highlights broader concerns about the degree of congressional involvement in shaping the Executive Office of the President.

10. European agencies: Managing Europeanization

This chapter examines why European Union agencies have been created and what impact they are having on European governance. It begins with a discussion of theories that explain law-makersʼ design choices and the increasing popularity of European agencies, focusing on delegation and policy credibility, the politics of agency design, and legal obstacles to delegation. It then looks at the development and operation of three regulatory agencies: the European Environment Agency, the European Medicines Agency, and the European Food Safety Authority. It also considers issues regarding the EU agenciesʼ independence and accountability before concluding with an analysis of the model in which an EU agency serves as the coordinating hub of a network of national regulatory authorities.

The Regulation of Combination

In 15 American states, environmental protection agencies perform both pollution-control and natural resource conservation functions. In this study, I examine how this combination of functions affects the regulatory style embraced by these agencies. I find, through interviews with environmental agency workers and empirical analyses using enforcement data from 2010 to 2014, that the cooperation and flexibility with industry inherent to natural resource conservation efforts is a fundamental part of the regulatory process within these combined agencies. Great efforts are made to garner voluntary or negotiated compliance without the possible economic consequences of punitive actions. Enforcements are less frequent and less severe. The effect of this agency design choice is powerful, maintaining its effect even when controlling for political, ideological, and economical pressures. In a time where environmental protection agencies are increasingly interested in incorporating management-based regulation and voluntary compliance to supplement command and control regulation, it is more important than ever to understand the regulation that emerges from this combination.

Addiction, recovery and moral agency: Philosophical considerations

Uusitalo, S. (2015). Addiction, recovery and moral agency: Philosophical considerations. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, X(Y), N-M. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.vXiY.190 Aims: The purpose of this paper is to argue that it is important to recognize that addicts are morally accountable even for their addictive action, as moral agency is more generally an important factor in full-blown human agency. The challenge is to identify the problems that addicts have in their agency without discarding their potentially full-blown agency. Design: In philosophy of agency, moral responsibility and accountability, in particular, may refer to control over one’s action. I discuss this control as reason-responsiveness and, on a more general level, illustrate the importance of moral agency to human agency with a contrasting example of psychopaths and addicts as agents. Measures: A philosophical analysis is carried out in order to argue for the relevance and importance of moral accountability in therapeutic models of addiction. Findings: The example of psychopaths and addicts illustrates that moral agency is part of full-blown human agency, as psychopaths are generally believed to lack moral skills common to non-psychopathic individuals. I argue that addicts are not analogous to psychopaths in the framework of moral agency in this respect. Conclusions: By fleshing out the conceptual considerations in the framework of addiction therapies, I clarify the relevance and importance of moral accountability in therapeutic models of addiction. If evidence-based therapies attempt to restore the addict’s full-fledged agency at least in respect to addiction, then acknowledging addicts’ moral accountability for their action does matter.