Overseeing Oversight: New Departures and Old Problems

Abstract

In this article, we analyze recent scholarly writing on legislative control of bureaucracy. Once a neglected area of research, this literature has expanded substantially and has become more sophisticated. Still, many basic problems remain unresolved. We find, for example, difficulties in choosing between theoretical elegance and empirical validity. We note problems of choosing between competing conceptions of self-interest as a motivating force. We note also conflict over the relevance of context as it relates to incentives and opportunities. Despite substantial progress in thinking about oversight, we conclude that these basic problems remain unresolved. Especially prominent are gaps in the analysis of the impacts of oversight. We conclude that an institutional focus broader than the legislature is essential to coming to grips with many of these issues. In the August 1984 issue of Legislative Studies Quarterly, Bert A. Rockman assessed the prevailing state of research and theory in executive-legislative relations. The central element of this assessment was legislative oversight, defined as legislative supervision and monitoring of the executive, whether overt or covert. Even though legislative activism was observed in cabinet-parliamentary systems, no other national legislature has the capacity of the U.S. Congress to engage in oversight activities, although, to be sure, this capacity is not always used. Precisely how use is defined, however, is a very controversial, yet central, matter in the analysis of oversight. This return visit to the precincts of legislative oversight analyzes recent developments in a literature that has thickened a good bit. We begin by sketching and analyzing at length the principal controversies and unresolved issues, some of which were noted in the earlier article. We then look at the role of legislators' goals and incentives in the literature of oversight. Next, we examine changes in the institutional context and in the broader political context that affect oversight and influence incentives to engage in oversight. Finally, we examine empirical