Administrative state
| What are the five pillars of the administrative state? Ballotpedia's five pillars of the administrative state provide a framework for understanding the authority, influence, and actions of administrative agencies, as well as the policies and arguments surrounding them. The five pillars focus on the control of administrative agencies related to the (1) legislative, (2) executive, and (3) judicial branches of government, (4) the public, and (5) other agencies or sub-agencies. |
The administrative state is a term used to describe the phenomenon of executive branch administrative agencies, staffed by unelected officials, exercising the power to create, adjudicate, and enforce their own rules at both the state and federal levels. These agencies create regulations that have the force of law by interpreting and implementing legislative statutes. They adjudicate disputes through administrative courts or hearings, where agency officials act as judges. They enforce compliance by conducting investigations, issuing fines, and taking other regulatory actions.
Why does it matter?
The administrative state occupies a major role within modern governance, its major importance stemming from its profound impact on the balance of power. By engaging in rulemaking, enforcement, and adjudication, administrative agencies significantly influence the implementation and interpretation of laws. This influence directly affects the delicate balance of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
What are the key arguments?
Supporters of the administrative state argue that agencies are necessary for managing complex policy issues, applying specialized knowledge, and ensuring government responsiveness. They contend that the structure allows for efficient and effective governance.
Opponents argue that the administrative state consolidates legislative, executive, and judicial functions within agencies, bypassing traditional checks and balances. Critics say this concentration of power undermines congressional authority and democratic accountability, advocating for reforms to limit agency discretion and increase oversight.
What’s the background?
Ballotpedia’s five pillars are key to understanding the main areas of debate about the nature and scope of administrative agency action:
- Agency control
- Executive control
- Judicial control
- Legislative control
- Public control
Five pillars of the administrative state
The following table identifies Ballotpedia's five pillars of the administrative state:
| Five pillars of the administrative state | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agency control | Executive control | Judicial control | Legislative control | Public control |
| Concerns the interplay between agencies and sub-agencies, including how agencies oversee, coordinate, and delegate authority within their structures. | Concerns the interplay between agencies and the executive branch, focusing on how presidents, governors, and other executive officials oversee and influence agency actions. | Concerns the interplay between agencies and the courts, examining how judicial review affects agency actions and how courts interpret agency regulations and decisions. | Concerns the interplay between agencies and the legislative branch, including how lawmakers create, oversee, and constrain administrative agencies. | Concerns how agencies relate to the people and organizations subject to their rules, focusing on transparency, accountability, and public participation in the regulatory process. |
Agency control of the administrative state
Agency control is one of five pillars used to understand Ballotpedia's coverage of the administrative state. It focuses on the balance of power among administrative agencies.
The agency control pillar focuses on the structure and function of administrative agencies. While the majority of agencies are housed under the executive branch, others are established as independent federal agencies or are housed under the legislative or judicial branches. These structural variations impact agency oversight as well as agency interactions across branches. This pillar also involves understanding the nuts and bolts of agency functions, including rulemaking and adjudication proceedings.
Executive control of the administrative state
Executive control of agencies is one of five pillars used to understand Ballotpedia's coverage of the administrative state. It focuses on the balance of power between administrative agencies and the executive branch.
Executive control is a central concept in the debate over the nature and scope of the administrative state. It involves three primary components: appointment and removal power, executive review of agency rules, and legislative review of executive actions. The appointment and removal power is the authority of an executive to appoint and remove officials in the various branches of government. Executive review of agency rules mandates that the governor or another part of the executive branch review all agency rules. Legislative review of executive actions introduces a process for the state legislature to review or rescind executive orders issued by the governor.
Judicial control of the administrative state
Judicial control of agencies is one of five pillars used to understand Ballotpedia's coverage of the administrative state. It focuses on the balance of power between administrative agencies and the courts.
Judicial control is a central concept in the debate over the nature and scope of the administrative state. It involves two primary components: judicial review of agency rules and judicial deference. Judicial review refers to the courts' authority to examine and potentially overturn agency actions or rules. Judicial deference, on the other hand, occurs when a court defers to an agency's interpretation of a statute or regulation it has issued. In other words, when a law or regulation is challenged in court, the agency’s interpretation is upheld if it is deemed reasonable, even if the court would prefer a different interpretation.
Legislative control of the administrative state
Legislative control of agencies is one of five pillars used to understand Ballotpedia's coverage of the administrative state. It focuses on the balance of power between administrative agencies and the legislative branch.
Legislative control is a central concept in the debate over the nature and scope of the administrative state. It includes two primary components: (1) delegation and nondelegation and (2) legislative oversight (including legislative approval and veto requirements). Delegation and nondelegation refer to the extent to which a legislature grants authority to agencies and whether such delegation is constitutionally permissible. Legislative oversight refers to a legislature's ability to monitor, approve, or reject agency actions through mechanisms like the REINS Act, resolutions of disapproval, and legislative vetoes.
Public control of the administrative state
Public control of agencies is one of five pillars used to understand Ballotpedia's coverage of the administrative state. It focuses on the balance of power between administrative agencies and the public.
Public control is a central concept in the debate over the nature and scope of the administrative state and represents how administrative agencies relate to the people and organizations subject to their rules and regulations. The primary components of the public control pillar are public participation and procedural rights. This includes topics such as individual due process, standing, adjudication and enforcement proceedings, and public participation in the rulemaking process.
Federal departments and agencies
The U.S. executive government consists of 15 federal departments and more than 400 agencies, including some independent agencies, all responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the federal government. Each department oversees a variety of agencies that focus on specific areas, ranging from industry regulation to service provision and ensuring compliance with federal laws. This section outlines the major U.S. departments and their associated agencies as of March 18, 2025.
Key points in development of the administrative state
| Administrative State |
|---|
| Five Pillars of the Administrative State |
| •Agency control • Executive control • Judicial control •Legislative control • Public Control |
| Click here for more coverage of the administrative state on Ballotpedia.
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The Age of Enlightenment (18th century)
The roots of the administrative state extend to the Age of Enlightenment and the corresponding French and American Revolutions. In the broadest terms, philosophers of the period embraced rational thought as the instrument of human improvement. During this time, individuals began to regard reason as intellectually superior to faith, including faith in religion and the social hierarchy of the period. Enlightenment thinkers embraced the idea that reason could drive human improvement by giving individuals the tools to make the best decisions for their lives. Undergirding this philosophy was the idea that knowledge over time, if applied by well-intended people, would result in societal benefits. A society organized by reason would, it was supposed, engender liberty and equality to replace the ancien régime (the monarchy, nobility, and the Catholic Church).[1]
The Enlightenment principle that reason could improve society was embraced by French and American revolutionaries of the late 18th century, who championed the notion that reason could entirely remake society. The argument that reason can improve and reshape society is a common thread that carries through to leaders of the Progressive Era and the modern administrative state.[2]
The Progressive Era (1890-1920)
Early growth of the administrative state occurred as a result of government regulation in the late 19th century. Thus was born the Progressive Era, during which reformers sought to remedy a variety of perceived social ills through an administrative apparatus run by those deemed experts untainted, it was believed, by political ambitions—and freed, in the view of some, from fixed constitutional constraints.
During the 1870s, agricultural workers called for the government regulation of railroads, which transported farm goods to markets, and banks, which financed farm production. The Interstate Commerce Commission, the nation's first regulatory agency, was created in 1887 to regulate railroads and carriers across state lines. Moreover, industrialization and immigration contributed to enormous wealth creation at the turn of the 20th century, but living conditions in major cities also deteriorated, and factories, some argued, could be dangerous. As the 19th century drew to a close, workers compensation laws were adopted by a number of states to address accidents and injuries suffered by industrial workers. Congress went on to pass the Federal Meat Inspection Act in 1906 to regulate the meat packing industry and safeguard against unsanitary slaughterhouse operations. That same year, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drugs Act to regulate the manufacture and distribution of what the legislation described as "adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs or medicines, and liquors.”[3][4][5][6]
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson, who assumed the presidency in 1913, embraced policies that contributed to the expansion of the budding administrative state. Wilson, Frank Goodnow, and other contemporary thought leaders envisioned a government structure where politics and administration could operate separately from one another. Under this structure, government administration could be managed by neutral experts operating without political influence who would, consequently, improve the lives of all Americans. The Pendleton Act of 1883 made early progress in this direction by eliminating patronage in political government appointments and establishing a merit-based system for the selection of government employees. In order to fully implement his vision, Wilson supported the concept of a Darwinian Constitution—the idea that the Constitution is a living document that can change with society over time. Wilson and his contemporaries, influenced by German Hegelian philosophers, also championed the idea of mature freedom, which grants individuals the freedom that they can responsibly manage as opposed to recognizing individual freedom as a natural right.[3][7]
The progressive underpinnings of the Wilson administration (1913-1921) influenced a number of regulatory actions. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 created the Federal Reserve System and implemented federal regulation of the banking industry, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was established in 1914, and the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 strengthened the FTC's anti-trust enforcement measures.[3][4]
The New Deal (1933-1939)
During the 1920s, the growth in government administration slowed and, according to Harvard professors Edward Glaeser and Andrei Schleifer, even retreated. However, the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression gave rise to the New Deal, which operationalized progressive notions of government. President Franklin Roosevelt (D) and Congress effectively seized control of the financial system, and empowered a new administrative bureaucracy to refashion American society.
The New Deal ushered in a resurgence of progressive ideology and a shift toward the idea that science and experts in government administration could improve society. James Landis, an advisor to President Roosevelt and an architect of the New Deal, implemented a broad expansion of federal administrative agencies in a relatively short period of time. The Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934 regulated the securities markets and created the Securities and Exchange Commission. The National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Communications Commission were also created during this period.[3][4]
According to Glaeser and Schleifer, "When Landis wrote in 1938, he could confidently conclude that 'the administrative' has replaced 'the judiciary' as the principal form of social control of business.”[4]
American political scientist Dwight Waldo coined the term administrative state in his 1948 book The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration. For more information about the origin and evolution of the term administrative state, click here.
The second wave and the modern administrative state (1964-present)
President Lyndon Johnson's (D) Great Society programs spurred a new period of growth for the administrative state. This "second wave of regulatory growth crested" by the 1970s, according to Christopher DeMuth, a fellow at the Hudson Institute. Under Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon (R), new federal agencies were created, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.[3][8]
Unlike the independent regulatory commissions created during the Progressive Era, which Demuth described as "mini-legislatures," the federal agencies established during the second wave of regulatory growth were hierarchies with a single individual at the helm appointed by the president. Moreover, unlike the Democratic-driven growth of the early 20th century, Democrats and Republicans alike contributed to the expansion of the administrative state during the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st century. DeMuth observed that prior to the Democratic Obama administration, the largest increases in federal regulations occurred during the Republican administrations of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. The total annual page count of Federal Register, the daily journal of the federal government that is often used as a metric to gauge the size and scope of federal administrative activity, reached an all-time high of 95,894 pages under the Obama administration in 2016.[8]
The modern administrative state is made up of a complex combination of executive agencies and independent federal agencies—though the exact number of current agencies is unknown. Estimates from the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) range from 78 to 137 independent federal agencies and between 174 and 268 executive agencies.[9][10]
Major arguments for and against the administrative state
Scholars and observers of the administrative state have presented a number of arguments regarding the perceived merits and shortcomings of the administrative state. The following overviews put forth the key claims made by both supporters and opponents of the administrative state. For a taxonomy of arguments about the nature and scope of the administrative state, click here.
Supporting arguments
Supporters of the administrative state generally argue that federal agencies perform valuable government functions, such as administering federal social services programs and enacting health and safety regulations. In the process, proponents claim that agency staff acquire subject-matter expertise that enables them to develop and implement specialized regulations beyond the broad directives that legislators, often with only cursory subject-matter knowledge, instruct agencies to administer. Supporters contend that federal judges, therefore, appropriately exercise deference agencies' expert interpretations of statutes and regulations. Thus, proponents argue that federal agencies support the federal government by developing and overseeing complex regulations that implement broader policy goals.
Opposing arguments
Opponents of the administrative state generally center their arguments on what they consider to be the constitutional violations of administrative agencies. They argue that the combination of executive, legislative, and judicial functions within administrative agencies violates the separation of powers principle and that congressional delegations of authority to agencies for the development of regulations violate the nondelegation doctrine. Judges, opponents claim, regularly subvert their judicial responsibility to interpret the law by deferring to agency interpretations of statutes and regulations. Moreover, opponents question the impartiality of federal administrative adjudicators and claim that the administrative adjudication process violates citizens' procedural rights.
Overviews of the administrative state
This section provides overviews of key administrative state topics, each separated by specific subject areas.
See also
External links
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- ↑ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Enlightenment," August 29, 2017
- ↑ Tackett, T. (2015). The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (page 2)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 The Heritage Foundation, "From Administrative State to Constitutional Government," accessed September 28, 2017
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Harvard Law Review, "The Rise of the Regulatory State," June 2003
- ↑ U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Celebrating 100 Years of FMIA," accessed September 28, 2017
- ↑ "History, Art, & Archives—U.S. House of Representatives, "The Pure Food and Drug Act," accessed September 28, 2017
- ↑ "National Archives", "Document for January 16th: An Act to regulate and improve the civil service of the United States (Pendleton Act), January 16, 1883," accessed September 28, 2017
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 National Affairs, "The Regulatory State," Summer 2012
- ↑ Administrative Conference of the United States, "Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies," May 2013
- ↑ JUSTIA, "Legislative Agencies," accessed October 12, 2017