journal article
Interest Groups in the Rule-Making Process: Who Participates? Whose Voices Get Heard?Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART
Vol. 8, No. 2 (Apr., 1998)
, pp. 245-270 (26 pages)
Published By: Oxford University Press
//www.jstor.org/stable/1181558
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Abstract
This article addresses three questions about notice and comment rule making. The first considers who participates: Who submits comments to federal agencies during the notice and comment period? The second considers the extent to which the comments alter the content of the rules. The third is about evaluating agency rule making in the context of the iron triangle and issue network models of policy making. The article examines eleven rules selected randomly at the EPA, NHTSA, and HUD. Among the findings are: a dearth of citizen commenters, the predominance of participation by business interests, and the presence of issue networks, and the absence of any discernible bias in whose voices get heard. The article concludes by suggesting that agencies fail to hear from all affected parties but that they are nonetheless put in the precarious position of arbitrating among competing interests.
Journal Information
The Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory was established in the late 1980s to serve as a bridge between public administration and public management scholarship on the one hand, and public policy studies on the other. Its multidisciplinary aim is to embrace the organizational, administrative, and policy sciences as they apply to government and governance.
Publisher Information
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. OUP is the world's largest university press with the widest global presence. It currently publishes more than 6,000 new publications a year, has offices in around fifty countries, and employs more than 5,500 people worldwide. It has become familiar to millions through a diverse publishing program that includes scholarly works in all academic disciplines, bibles, music, school and college textbooks, business books, dictionaries and reference books, and academic journals.