Structure and Process, Politics and Policy: Administrative Arrangements and the Political Control of Agencies; Commentary: Political Uses of Structure and Process; Commentary: Administrative Process and Organizational Form as Legislative Responses to Agency Costs

Structure and process can be viewed as embodying an ex ante agreement among legislators and the president that limits the ability of each to engage in ex post opportunistic behavior. Since each has an incentive to influence the agency to make policies that are not consistent with the coalition's legislative agreement, all can benefit by limiting their own opportunism. Effective political control of an agency requires ex ante constraints on the agency. A case study of air pollution control regulation illustrates the difficulty with ex post legislative changes. Robinson says that the McCubbins, Noll, and Weingast model is too general to show how processes and structure can be used in favor of specific political interventions. Horn and Shepsle argue that the enacting coalition must try to protect the deal it struck and must be concerned about the influence of subsequent political coalitions.