Although relatively unknown outside of Europe, comitology committees are an object of considerable controversy in the European Union (EU). Controversy stems from their pivotal role in overseeing policy implementation authority delegated from the Council of Ministers (Council) to the European...

Congress uses varying degrees of specificity when passing legislation. Sometimes it writes very detailed, exacting laws; other times it leaves these details to implementing agencies. A natural positive question then arises: what factors are critical for understanding the degree of delegation...

If different parties control the U.S. Congress and White House, the United States may maintain higher import protection than otherwise. This proposition follows from a distributive politics model in which Congress can choose to delegate trade policymaking to the President. When the congressional...

Whereas historical accounts of U.S. tariff policy from 1877 to 1934 emphasize the pivotal role of parties, previous quantitative studies have failed to identify significant partisan effects. A formal model of policymaking in which strong parties aggregate voters' preferences provides empirical...

This article develops a formal model of interest groups and congressional control of the bureaucracy. It shows that, even when interest groups act strategically, lobbyists can facilitate Congress's oversight role. Our results indicate that lobbying can help reduce informational asymmetries...

Existing theories of legislative organization attribute the strong committee system in the U.S. Congress to members' distributive, informational, or partisan needs. But legislators elsewhere share these same motivations, yet not all have chosen to organize themselves in a similar fashion....

In this paper we model the commercial lobbying industry (such as the so-called K-Street lobbyists of Washington, D.C.). In contrast to classical special interest groups commercial lobbying firms are not directly motivated by policy outcomes. They exist to make profits by selling intermediaries...

In this paper we present a model of the behavior of commercial lobbying firms (such as the so-called K-Street lobbyists of Washington, D.C.). In contrast to classical special interest groups, commercial lobbying firms represent a variety of clients and are not directly affected by policy...

In this paper we present a model of the behavior of commercial lobbying firms (such as the so-called K-Street lobbyists of Washington, D.C.). In contrast to classical special interest groups, commercial lobbying firms represent a variety of clients and are not directly affected by policy...