The laws that legislatures adopt provide the most important and definitive opportunity elected politicians have to define public policy. But the ways politicians use laws to shape policy varies considerably across polities. In some cases, legislatures adopt detailed and specific laws in efforts to micromanage policy-making processes. In others, they adopt general and vague laws that leave the executive and bureaucrats substantial autonomy to fill in the policy details. What explains these differences across political systems, and how do they matter? The authors address this issue by developing and testing a comparative theory of how laws shape bureaucratic autonomy. Drawing on a range of evidence from advanced parliamentary democracies and the American states, they argue that particular institutional forms have a systematic and predictable effect on how politicians use laws to shape the policy making process.

‘This is a remarkable book. It is embedded firmly in the well-established ‘new institutionalist’ literature on comparative politics. And it extends a well-recognized debate over how (and how carefully) elected politicians delegate authority to unelected bureaucrats. Yet, for all its pedigree, it is original, innovative, and important. It is bold in its theoretical scope, impressive for its painstaking attention to empirical detail, and, for all that, a pleasure to read … This will be the most important book in delegation since Kiewiet and McCubbins’s The Logic of Delegation a decade ago.’

Source: Japanese Journal of Political Science

‘… this is an outstanding book that should be read by anyone interested in legislative-bureaucratic relations.’

West European Politics

'… remarkable … This book asks a very crucial, yet little examined question …'.

Source: Journal of Public Policy