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Pluralism, Agency Autonomy, or Bureaucratic Capture: Public Participation in State
Agency Rulemaking
Administrative rulemaking is a central feature of nearly all government programs.
Legislatures tend to pass vague legislation, thereby providing substantial grants of
authority to bureaucratic agencies.
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As the administrative state grows larger and more
complex, rulemaking increasingly determines the substance of public programs (Kerwin
2003; Wilson 1990).
Delegating authority to unelected bureaucrats inevitably raises questions about the
democratic legitimacy of agency decisionmaking. Many scholars advocate public
involvement in the rulemaking process as at least a partial solution to these legitimacy
issues (Graham and Hays 1986; Harrington and Frick 1983). Advocates of public
participation also suggest that it provides many other salutary effects, include promoting
accountability and oversight, providing new information, and affirming citizenship
(Kerwin 2003). The beliefs of these advocates, however, may be based more on
normative preferences or vague expectations than on empirical evidence. A variety of
steps have been made to broaden access in agency rulemaking in many states; empirical
attention to the consequences of this access, however, has been practically nonexistent.
This study assesses the policy consequences of a variety of procedural
mechanisms designed to broaden public access to administrative rulemaking in the U.S.
states. While there is little variation in public participation mechanisms available at the
national level, considerable diversity is evident across states. Important differences
include whether citizens have the right to present oral and written comments during the
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There are several reasons for statutory delegation of policymaking authority include the following. First,
politicians may lack expertise in the technical matters of particular policies. Second, the more specific a
piece of legislation is, the more likely that it will offend some member of a politician’s constituency.
Finally, forging the legislative coalitions necessary to pass legislation is facilitated by the differing
interpretations that statutory ambiguity affords (Davis and Pierce 1994; Ripley and Franklin 1984).
Convention