Administrative Law and Regulation

This chapter discusses a history of US administrative law for public-administration scholars, educators, and practitioners who are broadly concerned with citizenship in the modern American administrative state. It seeks to show how the directions taken by administrative law were influenced by political, economic, social, and technological change, as well as by administrative development and evolving legal theory. The chapter describes law in the United States as the product of tension between public administrative doctrine and practice and the Constitution’s separation of powers and broad guarantees of individual rights. It provides an overview of the central constitutional problem addressed by administrative law; and explains a discussion of the evolving formal definitions of administrative law. The chapter analysis the relationship between regulatory administration and the development of administrative law; and also discuss a schema for analyzing administrative penetration of the economy and society. Antitrust and fair-trade regulations are the preeminent examples of administrative activities aimed at regulating market behavior.