Keeping a Watchful Eye: The Politics of Congressional Oversight - Softcover

Aberbach, Joel D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815700598 ISBN 13: 9780815700593

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 1991

Synopsis

Congressional oversight activity has increased dramatically since the early 1970s. Congressional committees now spend more of their time holding hearings to review the activities of federal agencies, and committee staff members are busy collecting information about what goes on during program implementation. This book examines the reasons behind the surprising growth of congressional oversight. Using original data collected for this project, Joel D. Aberbach documents the increase in oversight activity and links it to changes in the political environment. He explores the political purposes served by oversight, the techniques Congress uses to uncover information about the activities of the federal bureaucracy, and the reasons why topics get on the oversight agenda. He concludes that even though the U.S. government system was not designed with a large administrative sector in mind, its ability to expose bureaucratic behavior to public scrutiny is impressive, and the Congress plays a vital role in this endeavor.

About this title

About the Author:

Joel D. Aberbach, former senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, is professor of political science and director of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Review:

"This book is an exceptionaly well-executed piece of thinking and research. It says more interesting and useful things about legislative oversight than any other book available. This is a genuinely important book that will have a major impact in this field." —Morris S. Ogul, University of Pittsburgh

"Joel Aberbach goes far to connect the ideals implied in Keeping a Watchful Eye with the realities of The Politics of Congressional Oversight. This book is... a broad-scale examination of oversight and it ranks as the best single overview of this growing and increasingly important congressional function." —Frederick M. Kaiser, Congressional Reseach Service

"uses a wealth of original data to dispel several widely credited myths concerning congressional oversight of the bureaucracy.... There is no other single work that covers congressional oversight and management of the bureaucracy with such insight and depth. -" —Matthew D. McCubbins, University of California, San Diego

"...the definitive treatment of the subject. -" —Legislative Information Alert

About this edition

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0815700598
• ISBN 13: 9780815700593
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 305