Fact check: Is the term administrative state used only by conservatives?
August 8, 2018
By Ballotpedia staff
Use of the term administrative state has increased considerably since Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump's former chief strategist, declared in February 2017 that the new administration was seeking "deconstruction of the administrative state." Jeremy Peters, a reporter for The New York Times, claimed in a March 2018 article on judicial nominations, “The Trump administration has a new litmus test: reining in what conservatives call ‘the administrative state.’”[1]
Is Peters correct? Is the term administrative state used only by conservatives?
No, Peters' claim is inaccurate. The term administrative state is currently used, and has been throughout much of the 20th Century, by scholars across the political spectrum in the study of administrative law and public administration. The term has also been featured in rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and other judicial opinions.
History of the term
- See also: Use of the term administrative state
The concept of the administrative state can be traced to the Age of Enlightenment, when philosophers questioned authoritarian government and argued instead for a society organized by reason to engender liberty and equality. It first gained prominence in the United States during the Progressive Era, when Woodrow Wilson and his ideological contemporaries argued that the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine undermined effective public administration by an expert governing class. The actual term dates to the 1948 publication of political scientist Dwight Waldo’s classic text, The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration. In his book, Waldo expounds on the importance of civil servants in properly shaping society.
In more recent years, the term has been used by scholars such as Cass Sunstein,[2] who headed the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President Obama, and Adrian Vermeule,[3] a legal scholar at Harvard Law school, who posits that administrative agencies hold the requisite legitimacy and competence to best address the complex issues of modern life.
Timeline
Other notable uses of the term include:
- 1960s: Indiana University Law prof. Ralph F. Fuchs, who founded the state’s chapter of the ACLU, examined the evolution of the administrative state in his 1969 article, "The New Administrative State: Judicial Sanction for Agency Self-Determination in the Regulation of Industry."[4]
- 1970s: James O. Freedman, former president of both Dartmouth College and the University of Iowa and a proponent of liberal arts education, addressed the expansion of agency powers in his 1978 book Crisis and Legitimacy: The Administrative Process and American Government.[5]
- 1980s: Columbia Law School prof. Peter Strauss, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, used the term in his 1984 article “The Place of Agencies in Government: Separation of Powers and the Fourth Branch.”[6]
- 1990s: Justice David Souter employed the term in his 1999 dissent for Alden v. Maine, stating, "The proliferation of Government, State and Federal, would amaze the Framers, and the administrative state with its reams of regulations would leave them rubbing their eyes."[7]
- 2000s: Defenders of the administrative state, including scholars Cass Sunstein[2], Adrian Vermeule[3], and Eric Posner[8], incorporated the term in their writings.
Conclusion
New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters claimed in a March 2018 article, "The Trump administration has a new litmus test: reining in what conservatives call ‘the administrative state.’" Peters’ claim that the term administrative state is used only by conservatives is incorrect. The administrative state is a term rooted in public administration and political science scholarship dating from the 1940s, while the concept dates to the Age of Enlightenment.
See also
- Ballotpedia's administrative state coverage
- Changes to the Federal Register
- Glossary of administrative state terms
Sources and Notes
- ↑ The New York Times, "Trump’s New Judicial Litmus Test: Shrinking ‘the Administrative State,’" March 26, 2018
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sunstein, Cass and Vermeule, Adrian. Harvard Law Review, “The Morality of Administrative Law,” 2018
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Vermeule, Adrian. Law's Abnegation: From Law's Empire to the Administrative State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016
- ↑ Fuchs, Ralph. Columbia Law Review, "The New Administrative State: Judicial Sanction for Agency Self-Determination in the Regulation of Industry," February 1969.
- ↑ Freedman, James O. Crisis and legitimacy: the administrative process and American government. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
- ↑ Strauss, Peter. Columbia Law Review, “The Place of Agencies in Government: Separation of Powers and the Fourth Branch,” 1984.
- ↑ JUSTIA, Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706 (1999), accessed May 25, 2018
- ↑ Posner, Eric and Vermeule, Adrian. University of Chicago Law Review, “Crisis Governance in the Administrative State: 9/11 and the Financial Meltdown of 2008,” 2009
Launched in October 2015 and active through October 2018, Fact Check by Ballotpedia examined claims made by elected officials, political appointees, and political candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. We evaluated claims made by politicians of all backgrounds and affiliations, subjecting them to the same objective and neutral examination process. As of 2025, Ballotpedia staff periodically review these articles to revaluate and reaffirm our conclusions. Please email us with questions, comments, or concerns about these articles. To learn more about fact-checking, click here.
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