Reorganizing Government: A Functional and Dimensional Framework
Reorganizing Government; A Functional and Dimensional Framework by Alejandro Camacho and Robert Glicksman, New York University Press, 2019.
Posted: 19 Feb 2020 Last revised: 6 Apr 2020
Date Written: February 18, 2020
Abstract
Reorganizing Government offers an original model for constructing and assessing government authority, and seeks to transform how policymakers and scholars understand relationships between government institutions. Regulation is frequently less successful than it could be in part because the allocation of authority to government institutions, and the relationships between them, are misunderstood. As a result, attempts to create new regulatory programs or mend under-performing ones are often poorly designed.
The book advances an analytical framework of governmental authority structured along three dimensions—the extent of centralization, overlap, and coordination. It demonstrates how differentiating among these dimensions better illuminates the policy tradeoffs of organizational alternatives, and reduces the risk of regulatory failure. The book also explains how differentiating allocations of authority based on governmental function can lead to more effective regulation and governance.
Reorganizing Government explains how policy makers and scholars have often neglected key aspects of inter-jurisdictional relations, using in-depth explorations of diverse case studies involving regulation of securities, banking, food safety, pollution control, resource conservation, and terrorism prevention. It then explores the practical value of this framework for future reorganization efforts through the lens of climate change, an emerging and vital global policy challenge. Finally, it proposes an “adaptive governance” infrastructure that could allow policy makers to embed the creation, evaluation, and adjustment of the organization of regulatory institutions into the democratic process itself.
Keywords: regulation,legislation,bureaucracy,administrative agency,institutional design,adaptive governance,federalism,public administration,centralization,decentralization,government coordination,government competition,food safety,environmental,securities,intelligence gathering,banking,climate change
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Robert L. Glicksman
George Washington University - Law School ( email )
2000 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20052
United States
202-994-4641 (Phone)
HOME PAGE: http://www.law.gwu.edu/Faculty/profile.aspx?id=16085