using time series intervention analysis techniques W r i t i n g

Annotated Bibliography Information

You are assigned to do an Annotated Bibliography of scholarly research on a political science research. Watch this video from the writing lab on “thesis statements,” and see its discussion of what a “Research question” is. scholar.google.com) to get citation counts on your articles. Note that this approach is not foolproof, since new work may not have been cited much. Quality of journal is also a good indicator, which you must assess.

Annotated Bibliography Example

The research question evaluated in this annotated bibliography is “How do presidential efforts at administrative control affect the behavior of federal bureaucracies?”

Wood, B. Dan. 1988. Bureaucrats, Principals, and Responsiveness in Clean Air Enforcements. American Political Science Review. 82 (March): 215-234.

The research question addressed by this article is “How do public bureaucracies respond to presidential efforts at political control”? Specifically, it evaluates the manner and extent to which the Environmental Protection Agency responded to presidential tools of administrative control during the early 1980s. Using time series intervention analysis techniques for monthly data running from 1977 through 1985, the author hypothesizes that Environmental Protection Agency enforcement outputs responded in a systematic fashion to changes in political appointments and budgets during the Reagan administration. Consistent with the hypothesis, large budget cuts in October 1981 resulted in about a 50 percent reduction in EPA inspections and abatement actions. This reduced level of enforcement lasted until March 1983 when EPA administrator Ann Gorsuch Burford was forced to resign by Congress and was subsequently replaced by William Ruckelshaus. A substantial proportion of the budget was restored later the same year. The study shows that public bureaucracies are responsive to presidential efforts at control. Presidential control of the bureaucracy occurs through formal tools that enable every president to have an impact on bureaucratic activities. From the standpoint of political science theory, the study verifies one aspect of principal-agent models of political control of bureaucracy. Specifically, political principals do effectively alter agent behavior through the use of monitoring and sanction.