The Growth of Internal Conflict in Administrative Regulation

Two analytical approaches dominate the study of administrative regulation. One seeks to explain agency behavior solely in terms of forces exerted by interest groups, technological changes, the three constitutional branches of government, and other external actors and conditions. The other is based on the assumption that policy is the product of agency discretion and thus seeks to explain regulation as the product of internal factors such as organizational structure and the ideology, professional values, and career goals of bureaucrats. As Kenneth Meier observes, each of these perspectives is ''essentially incomplete for policy is a product of both regulatory bureaucracies and environmental forces.' A point which Meier and others have failed to note, however, is that the internal and external determinants of agency policy are themselves interrelated. This essay suggests in very general form that organizational functions and perspectives have become increasingly important linkages between environmental forces and policy output.