Requests and reality: The interplay of environmental regulatory design and implementation.

摘要

Regulatory policies are packages of ideas that seek outcomes on the parts of citizens and the groups that represent their interests. Policies created in the legislative setting are converted into specific mandates in "regulatory designs." Previous research on regulatory design is somewhat limited and tends to take a monolithic view. Additionally, the general link between public policy and implementation is rarely tested in a systematic way. Most scholarly study of the influence of design on implementation points to design characteristics that undermine policies rather than make them successful.; The goal of this dissertation is to determine the impact of regulatory design on regulatory implementation. I examine this relationship for state regulation of concentrated animal feeding operations. I develop a system for categorizing state administrative codes in three distinct dimensions that address regulatory dilemmas common to environmental regulatory design, which I term scope, stringency and prescription. I also develop and administer a mail-out survey to state officials responsible for the implementation of CAFO regulatory design. The results of this survey are used to investigate the link between the design dimensions that emerge from the coding framework and implementation.; This dissertation makes three contributions to political science and public policy. First, the dissertation contains a framework to measure characteristics of regulatory design. The framework outlines the three dimensions of policy design of scope, stringency, and prescription for CAFO regulation, and is meant to be useful in studying other types of regulatory designs. Second, looking at regulatory design in this multidimensional context shows that different sets of political actors are effective in determining various characteristics of policy design. The findings show interest groups influence the stringency of regulations, political parties influence scope, and governor powers influence prescription. Third, this dissertation shows that the commitment of implementing agencies is essential in bridging the gap between design and implementation. Frontline workers take cues from provisions of policy design, but regulatory agencies are critical in reinforcing the cues. The research concludes that only when regulatory designs are strong and agencies are committed are regulatory ideas truly converted into desired implementation actions.