Regulatory state contraction: A study of policy and operational changes in the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

摘要

The purpose of this research is to examine what changes have taken place in regulatory agency policies and operations in response to diminishing organizational resources, as manifested in the real budget. This has in turn led to lower levels of staffing. While past research examines the emergence of the regulatory state, and how social, political, and economic forces have led to incremental surges in the amount of regulation and number of agencies, it has not extensively analyzed the changes that have taken place in the regulatory policies and operations of specific agencies since contraction of agency resources began during the 1980's. These past studies assumed that regulatory agencies possessed the resources and abilities needed to implement the policies set forth in the statutes that established them. This research examines policy and operational changes in two regulatory agencies: the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It analyzes agency data collected for the period 1975 through 1997. What becomes clear is that a decreasing real budget has led to policy and operational changes within these two agencies in areas such as case management, allocation of resources, compliance policies, and from coercing companies to a policy of cooperation. These changes have allowed the NLRB and OSHA to become more effective and efficient.