The policy outputs resulting from the interaction between U.S. Courts of Appeals and federal administrative agencies impact the lives of thousands of individuals on a daily basis. Thus, understanding the factors that influence this process is important for both empirical and normative reasons. To further this understanding, I develop a new theoretical framework that combines aspects of traditional separation-of-powers models with impact theory to treat judicial review of agency action and agency implementation of those decisions as a single process rather than independent events. My theory focuses on three key factors that influence this process: the salience of the issues in a given case, the ideological congruence between the court and agency, and the institutional costs each actor must consider in their decision calculus. From this framework I derive the hypothesis that the impact of ideology on judicial decision making in administrative law cases is conditional on the salience, or importance, of the issue in the case. I utilize data on administrative law cases before the Courts of Appeals from 1960-2000 to test my theoretical predictions under a variety of conditions. I find strong support for the primary hypothesis and find the results to be robust to variation in agency-level factors and temporal change.
","abstract_html":"<p>The policy outputs resulting from the interaction between U.S. Courts of Appeals and federal administrative agencies impact the lives of thousands of individuals on a daily basis. Thus, understanding the factors that influence this process is important for both empirical and normative reasons. To further this understanding, I develop a new theoretical framework that combines aspects of traditional separation-of-powers models with impact theory to treat judicial review of agency action and agency implementation of those decisions as a single process rather than independent events. My theory focuses on three key factors that influence this process: the salience of the issues in a given case, the ideological congruence between the court and agency, and the institutional costs each actor must consider in their decision calculus. From this framework I derive the hypothesis that the impact of ideology on judicial decision making in administrative law cases is conditional on the salience, or importance, of the issue in the case. I utilize data on administrative law cases before the Courts of Appeals from 1960-2000 to test my theoretical predictions under a variety of conditions. I find strong support for the primary hypothesis and find the results to be robust to variation in agency-level factors and temporal change.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Fix, Michael P."],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Campus Access Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Political Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Kirk A Randazzo"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2011-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T04:37:28Z","subjects":["Political Science","Social and Behavioral Sciences","Administrative Law","Judicial Decision Making","Judicial Politics","Separation of Powers"],"languages":[],"rights":["© 2011, Michael P. Fix"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/1778","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Kirk A Randazzo"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Fix, Michael P."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Political Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Campus Access Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Political Science","Social and Behavioral Sciences","Administrative Law","Judicial Decision Making","Judicial Politics","Separation of Powers"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["© 2011, Michael P. Fix"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/1778"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["The policy outputs resulting from the interaction between U.S. Courts of Appeals and federal administrative agencies impact the lives of thousands of individuals on a daily basis. Thus, understanding the factors that influence this process is important for both empirical and normative reasons. To further this understanding, I develop a new theoretical framework that combines aspects of traditional separation-of-powers models with impact theory to treat judicial review of agency action and agency implementation of those decisions as a single process rather than independent events. My theory focuses on three key factors that influence this process: the salience of the issues in a given case, the ideological congruence between the court and agency, and the institutional costs each actor must consider in their decision calculus. From this framework I derive the hypothesis that the impact of ideology on judicial decision making in administrative law cases is conditional on the salience, or importance, of the issue in the case. I utilize data on administrative law cases before the Courts of Appeals from 1960-2000 to test my theoretical predictions under a variety of conditions. I find strong support for the primary hypothesis and find the results to be robust to variation in agency-level factors and temporal change.
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